CHAPTER SIX

HIS EYES WERE on the photographs. Sapphire. Briefly she’d faded, but now she flamed back into his consciousness, as sharp and poignant as ever. He drew in a sharp breath at the sight of her radiant beauty on the day she’d married another man.

‘They’re lovely pictures, aren’t they?’ Polly said.

She began to turn the pages. Freda had been at her best on that day: her extravagant beauty flaunted in a glamorous satin creation, George’s wedding gift of diamonds on her head, holding in place a veil that stretched to the floor.

There she was with her new husband, looking adoringly into his face because she wanted to be convincing in her role. George had been good for several more diamonds yet.

There she was with her chief bridesmaid, poor cousin Polly, looking horribly out of place in a frilly pink satin dress, her dullness cruelly contrasted with the bride’s lustrous looks.

One picture was a close-up of Freda alone, with a soft, sweet smile and a tender expression that had seldom been there in real life. She’d been an accomplished actress, and for this shot she’d managed to banish the gleam of greedy triumph from her eyes. The woman in that picture was enchanting: soft, generous, giving, yielding; everything that she had not been.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I shouldn’t have brought the wedding pictures.’

‘Why?’ he asked sharply. ‘Do you think I’m afraid of them?’

‘Perhaps you ought to be. What difference can it make now?’

‘Don’t say that. I can’t rid myself of her just because she’s dead. In some ways I feel I’ve only just met her, and I need to know everything.’

She shook her head, but she didn’t say aloud what she was thinking-that ‘everything’ was precisely what he couldn’t endure knowing. Instead she begged, ‘Let the past be. It’s the future that matters-your future and Matthew’s.’

‘But the future grows out of the past. What do I do if the past is a blank? I need to find out as much as I can, then maybe-I don’t know. Maybe things will be different. If I could see the places where she lived, get some picture of her life in my mind-you could take me back there.’

‘Ruggiero, no.’

‘But you could. We could go to England tomorrow. We don’t have to be away for long-just long enough for me to see where she lived and go around the places she knew-’

She seized his good shoulder, giving him a little shake.

‘It won’t bring her back,’ she said fiercely. ‘Stop this!’

‘I can’t,’ he said in agony.

Looking at him closely, she saw that he was in the grip of a powerful force that was devouring him. His eyes were full of a terrifying obsession. His hot breath brushing her face might have come from the fires of hell.

‘Stop it!’ she said. ‘Stop it!’

‘How?’ he asked bleakly. ‘Help me, Polly. You’re the only friend who can. Nobody else knows-I can’t tell anyone-how could I?’

It was true. Hope knew roughly what had happened, but not how deep his pain went. Because he loved his mother he would conceal the worst from her, but it left him with nobody to turn to except Polly.

‘All the time you were away,’ he went on, ‘I kept hoping for a miracle. Somehow I’d get things into perspective and see her clearly-that’s what I thought. And when you brought the baby back, I know I was supposed to take one look at him and be overcome with fatherly love.’

‘No, that’s only in sentimental films,’ she said. ‘I think what really happened is that you looked at him and thought, Oh, my God!’

‘O, mio dio!’ he agreed. ‘Call me a monster if you like, but I feel nothing for my son. Nothing.’

‘You’re not a monster at all. When you look at him I dare say you don’t actually see him, because there’s a brick wall built between you, and you can’t get past it.’

‘Except that she’s there too-both of her.’

‘Both?’

‘The beautiful girl who loved me and transformed my life, and the manipulator who took what she wanted and left me in a desert, without a backward glance. I don’t know which one of them is real, and until I know more nothing is ever going to be real.’

‘Maybe the reality is a bit of both,’ she said, trying to soften it for him.

‘Or maybe I’m simply telling myself pretty fairy tales-seeing only what I want to see, blocking my ears to anything that doesn’t fit in with my picture: a weak, foolish man who can’t bear to face unpleasant facts?’

‘Stop being so hard on yourself,’ she said fiercely. ‘You haven’t recovered from the shock yet.’

‘I thought I might find some sort of answer in the child’s face, but it seems to change all the time. Sometimes her, sometimes me-’

‘And sometimes he’s just himself, which is how it should be. That poor little boy, carrying the burden of so many expectations.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that? They’re all looking at him to see if he’s a true Rinucci-just as they’re watching me to see if I’m feeling the right things. So I do what I have to-kneel down, speak to him-so that they don’t think how heartless I am. Nobody must guess the truth except you. Without you to hold onto I think I’d go mad.’

She should be sensible and run away now. She’d already had a warning of the perilous path she was treading. But she didn’t want to be sensible. She wanted to take the burden from him, even if it led her further down that path and cost her dear.

Polly put her arms around him, letting her forehead rest against his.

‘And you can hold onto me. I’ll help all I can, but not by creating a dream world for you.’

‘I don’t want that,’ he said softly. ‘I want to know what she was like in the real world, and only you can tell me.’

‘And will telling you help?’ she asked. ‘Maybe talking about her will only make it worse?’

His eyes burned with his obsession, warning her of the dangerous direction his mind was taking.

‘But it might keep her with me,’ he whispered feverishly. ‘I’m not ready to let go yet.’

‘Even of her ghost?’

‘If that’s all I can have.’

‘Haven’t you had enough of ghosts?’ she asked passionately. ‘She’s haunted you for over two years, and she nearly killed you. Don’t you realise that?’

‘Or you did,’ he said wryly.

‘No, it wasn’t me who sent you spinning off the track into what might have been your grave.’

Something in her brain seemed to snap, and for a moment she went mad, her mind following his down the road to destruction.

‘That was her,’ she said passionately. ‘Because she’s jealous and possessive and she can’t bear to let you go, even though she doesn’t want you. That’s how she was. If she couldn’t have something, she hated anyone else to have it. Her life was taken, so now she-’

Appalled, she checked herself.

‘What am I saying?’ she choked. ‘I’m talking about her as though-almost as if-’

‘That’s what she’s doing to my head, too,’ he told her. ‘Now do you understand that there’s no escape?’

‘There is if you fight it.’

‘And if I don’t want to fight it? Do you know what happened to me that day at the track? When I saw her standing there in front of me I was glad. I knew she was beckoning me to disaster but I didn’t care. I was so full of joy at seeing her after so long. I think I called out to her-’

‘Yes,’ she said, remembering how he’d lain in her arms afterwards and murmured Sapphire’s name.

‘I was chasing her across a great distance, but she always evaded me, and then she was gone.’

‘And you think if I take you back to her old haunts you’ll find her? You won’t. That’s not where the truth lies.’

‘But I have to believe that it’s somewhere to be found otherwise I’ll go mad.’

‘Can’t it be enough that she was beautiful?’ Polly begged. ‘That you had a perfect time together and she left you a son?’

‘A chimera,’ he murmured. ‘Nothing more.’

‘That little boy wasn’t born from a chimera. He’s real, and he’s all that’s left of her. Ruggiero, please, please try to understand. You can’t bring her back.’

He seemed to relax against her, and for a moment she thought she’d got through to him. Moving slowly, she reached out to the wedding album and drew it towards her.

‘Let me take this,’ she said. ‘Don’t brood over it.’

But his hand clamped over hers. ‘Leave it.’

‘Ruggiero-’

‘I said leave it.’

Before he could reply she heard the shrill of her cellphone from her room.

‘I must answer that before it wakes him up,’ she said, and hurried out without closing Ruggiero’s door.

From the next room he heard her say,

I called you earlier today, but there was no answer so I assumed you’d gone to the hospital.’

Then he closed his door, resisting the temptation to eavesdrop further.

In her room, Polly moved well away from the cot and spoke softly into the phone.

‘Iris, I’m so glad your daughter’s all right. I’m sure she’ll be home from the hospital soon. And thank you for everything.’

She hung up and returned to Ruggiero.

‘Can I come in again?’ she asked through the closed door.

‘No,’ came his voice. ‘I won’t disturb you any longer. Goodnight, Polly.’

‘Goodnight.’

There was nothing to do but turn away, wondering about the opportunity that had been lost.

The next day Ruggiero announced that he was well enough to go work.

‘Is he?’ Hope immediately asked Polly.

‘Yes, he is,’ Ruggiero declared firmly.

‘Yes, he is,’ Polly said, speaking like a robot. Then she laughed and said, ‘You heard him. I’ve been told what to say.’

‘The idea of you taking orders!’ Hope scoffed, giving her an admiring look.

‘He’ll be all right if he’s careful,’ Polly said.

‘Then we’re going shopping,’ Hope said gleefully. ‘I want to celebrate my new grandson.’

‘By stripping the shops bare?’ Toni enquired with wry amusement.

‘Can you think of a better way of celebrating?’

She, Toni and Polly set off, accompanied by Matteo, as he had now become. Hope was in her element, spending money on toddler clothes, toddler toys, toddler food, turning to Polly for advice and sometimes actually taking it.

‘You’re not offended with me?’ she asked Polly anxiously. ‘I know you’ve always given him the best you could afford-’

‘I’m not offended. He was growing out of most of his stuff anyway, and who wants to pass up the chance of a shopping trip?’

Cheered by this sign of Polly’s good sense, Hope swept her into a dress shop and bought her the basis of a new wardrobe-‘So that I can be really sure you’re not offended.’

‘But I’m not-’

‘Then accept these few things, with my thanks.’

‘Don’t argue,’ Toni begged. ‘Let her have her own way, please!’

‘All right,’ Polly said, understanding him correctly. ‘For your sake.’

They all laughed.

The family was gathering, all eager to inspect the newest Rinucci. Later that day Luke and Minnie arrived from Rome, while Primo and Olympia made a second visit. Once more Matteo was in his element, holding court. In a very short time Matteo became Matti.

Ruggiero arrived to find Olympia holding the child up high while they giggled together. He behaved delightfully, kissing his sisters-in-law, joshing his brothers, and later joining in the family amusement at the sight of his father with his grandson on his lap, an adoring slave.

It was a charming scene, but again Polly knew that he was using it as a screen to hide how little he felt for his son. Once she would have blamed him, but now she understood more clearly. Freda’s rejection had wounded him as much as her death, perhaps more, and for now the child was merely a reminder of that.

When it was Matti’s bedtime Hope came to Polly’s room and assisted. When he was in his cot, she leaned down and kissed him.

‘Buona notte,’ she murmured.

Seeing Ruggiero in the doorway, she beckoned him forward.

‘Kiss him goodnight,’ she urged.

‘Better not disturb him now he’s sleeping,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll go to bed now, Mamma. Goodnight.’

Polly spent the next day at the villa with Hope and Toni, enjoying the sight of their rapport with Matti. Hope had noticed that Ruggiero wasn’t at ease with the child, but it didn’t trouble her greatly.

‘It will take a little time for him to relax about this,’ she said cheerfully. ‘But that’s all right. I’m not in a hurry to see him vanish back to his apartment.’

‘Apartment?’ Polly asked, startled. ‘I thought he lived here.’

‘He does some of the time, but he has his own place in Naples too. All our sons have homes away from us, but they keep their rooms in the villa.’

‘But how will he manage on his own with a child?’ Polly wondered.

‘He can’t. Matti will stay with us at first, and live with Ruggiero later, when he’s grown up enough to do things for himself.’ She added in an under-voice, ‘And when my son has grown up enough to be a father.’