The baby cries.
And the baby cries.
The cries get louder and more persistent.
They get shriller and shriller and more high-pitched, until only bats can hear them.
The baby howls, big monster sobs shake his tiny frame.
A choking sound.
A muffled whimper.
A gulp for air.
Oh, help. Where’s the Off button? Where is the Pause?
Emilia comes back in with my coffee on a tray. She sets it down on the bedside table and looks up. Her face is pale.
“Oh, signora!” she says over the sobbing, gawping and pointing and staring at my arms. “Are you OK?”
I look down and see bruises all over my arms and across my shoulders; they’re nasty-looking, blue. Where did they come from? I hadn’t even noticed. Emilia hasn’t spotted my toe or my knee (swollen and red and far uglier than the bruises). I’ve pulled all the muscles in my arms and legs. The soles of my feet are raw.
“And you’ve cut your knee!” she says, pointing at my leg.
“I’m fine,” I say. “Really.” I look a state.
I wish I were wearing more than this skimpy little nightie. “I got up in the night to go to the loo and tripped over the rug. Do you want to take Ernie while I get dressed?”
She narrows her eyes and shakes her head. I don’t think she believes me. “Signora, you want me I call the police?”
“God no, I’m fine.” I laugh, unconvincingly.
She pauses, as though she’s going to say something else, but then changes her mind. I pass the baby to Emilia; he’s screaming and flailing his arms and legs. He looks like an angry octopus. Emilia hugs him and kisses his forehead.
“Ma, ma, ma,” he says.
Ernie stops crying almost immediately. Emilia must have some kind of knack that I lack; she’s telepathic, like a horse whisperer. She has some special seventh sense. She gives me another look, up and down, her expression concerned, her face disapproving. But eventually she goes out to the hall and closes the door. Thank fuck for that. Screams ring in my ears, echoing, deafening. My head spins. Aches. I can still hear that crying like the sea in a seashell. I wipe the snot off my chest. It’s really, really hard work being a mother. What on Earth would I do without help?
I walk into the bathroom and look in the mirror. The bruises on my arms look exactly like Beth’s. They’re in the same place, the same size, the same shape, although hers were more purple, I think, almost black. I shake my head and frown in the mirror. Ambrogio never touched me. I don’t understand. That must have been where Salvatore was holding me when we fucked in the car. I remember the pressure, I guess it was hard, it was definitely rough, but at the time I barely noticed. It must be genetic. Beth and I both bruise easily. Well, that explains that.
But it doesn’t make sense. If Ambrogio’s not a wife beater, then what was Beth’s problem? She’d seemed so miserable: swearing, crying. I’ve never seen her that wound up. She seemed to have snapped. Lost the plot. Those diamonds in her bag suggest she was running away. I rub my palm over the bruises, they hurt a bit, but they look worse than they feel. OK, fine. So he wasn’t a thug, but something was up. Ambrogio thought they were working together. According to him, they had a plan. A plan! And they were both on board. At least, that’s what Ambrogio thought. That’s what he said. But I know Beth planned our swap in secret. . . .
Perhaps she wanted to save my life!
Yes, that’s it. It has to be. He was the one with the murderous mind-set. She was trying to keep me safe. She was plotting to leave without him. That’s why Ambrogio had seemed so shocked! Why were you dressed as Elizabeth, Alvie? She double-crossed him. Sneaky bitch.
I still need to get to the bottom of this, but this is really an excellent start. I must say, I’m impressed by my powers of deduction. I’m a veritable Miss Marple. I’m Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps I should join Scotland Yard?
I grab a toothbrush, it doesn’t matter which one, and brush my teeth.
◆
I’m swimming lengths in the pool. Breaststroke, so I don’t get my hair wet. Up and down. Up and down. Down and up again. It’s fucking hot and it’s cooling me down. That and it’s good for my bum. Beth had a bum like an underripe peach. I need to tone up. It’s key to my look. I saw some drop-dead gorgeous (but tiny) little hot pants by Balenciaga in Beth’s walk-in closet, but right now it would be a crime to wear them. Hot pants don’t work well with cellulite, that’s a true fact. I want a bum like a Kardashian, perfectly pert, better than Beth’s.
It’s going to have to be swimming. I hate all other forms of exercise (other than sex). I used to run a bit when I was younger, but now I don’t really like it. I don’t like sweating (other than sex). When you swim you can sweat in the water, so you don’t really notice. It’s perfect for me. Shit. If I’m Beth I’m going to have to do Pilates. I bet she has a personal trainer. They’re going to wonder why I’m so crap.
I concentrate on counting my lengths: nine, ten, eleven, twelve. I’m going to try to get to twenty before passing out and lighting a ciggy. I’m trying to clear my head. To relax. To meditate. I’ve been all wound up and I need to chill out. It’s all been quite stressful. I wasn’t expecting such a hectic trip. It’s supposed to be a holiday, for crying out loud! I want to unwind. But Ambrogio’s tanned and handsome face keeps popping up inside my head. I can’t seem to get him off my mind.
I’m disappointed, to tell you the truth. For eight long years, I’ve fantasized about this guy. Ever since that fateful night when he walked into that college bar, when he changed both our lives forever. I truly believed that he was the one. Eight years wasted, when I could have been obsessing about somebody else. I could have had a chance with Channing Tatum. I know . . . I know . . . he’s a Hollywood megastar . . . but I could have moved to L.A. Found out where he lived. Followed him home one night from a shoot . . . thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.
But I digress.
I’d had high hopes for Ambrogio. We could have been perfect together. Could have lived here forever, right here in this villa, in this perfect fucking villa, with our perfect little baby. With his sexy-ass car. But no, Ambrogio had to mess it all up. Ruin everything. Shove it all back in my face. Couldn’t he see I was trying to help? Make the best of a bad situation? Why couldn’t he just have played along? Who gives a fuck if I’m Alvie or Beth? I mean really, tell me, what’s the difference? I was playing the part. I was doing my bit. He could have made a little more effort. He needed a wife. Ernie needed a mum.
Ambrogio . . . Ambrogio . . . Ambrogio . . . fuck you. You know, it’s lucky that I’m on the pill or I could be pregnant with that man’s child (yet again)? Why do I always have to think of everything? Typical guy. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. There’s a streak of dried blood on the edge of the pool, it’s where Beth cracked her head when she fell in. At the top on the right. I can still hear the CRACK! I do not want to think about it. I splash some water up onto the stain and scrub it off with my fingers. Gone. I look back at the villa, and there is Emilia, standing in the kitchen window, watching, staring. She turns away. Gets on with the dusting. She can’t have seen the blood from back there. I’ve got nothing to fear. There’s no way that she’ll have worked it all out. Play it cool, Alvina. Don’t sweat it, kid. I climb the three little silver steps, glinting in the bright sunlight, and rub myself dry with Beth’s beach towel. No more obsessing about Ambrogio. He was regrettable. A disappointment. He was a fucking liability. Far too lethal to have around. He pulled a gun on me, for Christ’s sake! I light a cigarette and lay back on the sun bed. Close my eyes and breathe out smoke. I’ll obsess about Salvatore instead.
“Signora, Nino’s here to see you. Shall I let him in?”
Emilia’s voice startles me. I hadn’t noticed the doorbell ring. Nino? What the hell is he doing here? Oh, he’s probably looking fo
r Ambrogio.
“Sure,” I say, fixing my hair and sitting up straight on the sunbed. “Tell him to come through.”
“Sì, signora. Un momento.”
Emilia looks at my Marlboro Light and frowns, then turns away and walks back to the villa.
I wipe the beads of sweat from my brow. I’m already baking. The midday sun is brutal here. I pull my sarong up over my shoulders to cover the bruises, slip on Beth’s enormous shades. I stub out my ciggy. My disguise is complete. Nino bursts through the French doors with a deafening crash. I hear his feet smash the paving stones. He scans the garden as he marches toward me. Ha! He isn’t going to see Ambrogio, however hard he looks. He’s getting closer. He looks right at me. My stomach sinks. I hug my knees. I wonder how well Nino knew my sister. A chill spreads along the length of my spine, making me shiver.
“Where the fuck’s Il Professore? He was supposed to meet me!”
Shit.
I pull the sarong around my body so it covers me up like a cocoon. Nino looms over me and my sun bed like some kind of ominous monolith. Waiting. He whips off his shades. Eyes like black holes. A long, thin scar along his left cheek, as pink as an earthworm.
“Il Professore?” I say. I wonder why they call him that, is it because he’s got a degree?
He smiles a half-smile and reveals a gold tooth. “Your fucking husband. Where are you hiding him?”
Hmm: the antagonistic type.
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since last night. I slept in this morning and when I woke up, he was gone.”
Nino frowns: a deep, dark crevice at the center of his forehead. He doesn’t believe me. I study his face, his substantial mustache, his slender figure: taut, lithe, mean. If Nino were an animal, he’d be one of those birds that they use in cockfights in Thailand: an angry cockerel. Peck out your eyes. Scratch out your throat. But Nino’s got something magnetic about him. You just can’t take your eyes off this man. He’s mesmerizing, hypnotizing, like that snake in The Jungle Book, Kaa. He’s not handsome so much as charismatic, one of those people with natural charm, unshakable confidence. It’s strangely alluring. He’s not old, maybe thirty-five? Forty, tops. But his skin is creased from too much sun. Lines on his forehead, lines by his mouth. He doesn’t look the type to mess around with sunscreen. And I doubt he uses night cream.
“He’s not answering his phone.”
“I know,” I say, biting my lip. “I just tried calling, but assumed he was busy. He didn’t pick up.” I shrug. “I called several times.”
Nino takes a packet of Marlboro Reds from his jacket pocket; it’s a black leather jacket, with big silver studs. He must be boiling in that. He offers me a cigarette, but I shake my head. He takes a match and lights a flame, blows the smoke out in my face. I watch the match fall to the ground; the fire flickers; it’s still alight. I watch as it burns itself out.
“What happened to your foot?” Nino asks. He points to my feet. “Your toe looks fucked.”
“Oh, nothing. I fell over.”
I tuck my legs beneath me on the lounger, look away toward the pool; there’s a very slight breeze, so feathery light you can hardly feel it, but the surface ripples like corrugated iron. Nino sits down next to me on the sun bed, his arm against mine. He smells of leather. His jacket is scorching hot from the sun. Nino stares into my face, searching, assessing. His bullshit radar must be finely tuned. My whole body tenses. I’m rigid.
“Betta, I am gonna ask you again. Where is your husband?” More force in his voice. “I think you know.” I can taste the tobacco on his breath. I can see the rage in his eyes.
I look up at him, pleading. “No, I don’t know. I’m sure he’ll be home. He’s only been gone for a couple of hours. . . .” My voice trails off. The handle of a gun sticks out from the belt of Nino’s trousers: black, metallic, big enough to do serious damage. The initials “G.M.B.” spelled out in mother-of-pearl. Shit. Note to self: don’t mess with Nino. And go and get Ambrogio’s gun. I left it in that herbaceous border. I hope it’s still there. . . .
Nino holds my gaze, as though reading my mind. Staring me out. Watching me squirm. He looks down at his watch, a fat gold Rolex, glinting like fire.
“It’s nearly three. We were supposed to meet at ten o’clock. It was an important fucking meeting. Did you speak to Domenico?”
“Domenico? No, why?” I say.
I shrug. The sarong slips off. Nino sees my arms, my shoulders, the bruises. Shit.
“What the fuck? Who beat you up?”
“No one. It’s nothing.” I reach for the sarong.
He grabs my wrists in rough, dry palms and hauls me to my feet.
“Ow!” I cry out in pain: my broken toe! The sarong falls away and he slowly examines me, studying my black-and-blue body—I’m regretting the choice of Beth’s G-string bikini—he bends down low to get a better view: fingers the gash in my thigh, the cut on my knee.
“Ow!” I say, again.
The bruises on my arms are turning purple. Out here in broad daylight, I look pretty messed up.
“Who did this?” he says.
“No one. I fell.”
“Vaffanculo.” He spits on the ground. “Who was it? Tell me.” I’m getting a feeling of déjà vu. “Il Professore would never . . .”
“No, no, of course not,” I say.
He releases his grip. I flop down on the lounger. I wrap the sarong around my shoulders, although it’s far too late to hide. I curl up small into a ball. I should have worn a ski suit or one of those onesies with teddy bear ears.
“Betta, Betta, Betta,” he breathes. “There’s something you’re not telling me. If your husband isn’t home by this evening, I’m coming back.”
I nod.
Not good.
He bends down toward me on the sun bed, leans in close so his eyes are just two inches away. Hot flecks of spit land on my face. “This is the wrong fucking time to disappear.”
Nino flicks his cigarette down to the ground, crushes it with the silver toe cap of a black leather boot. It glints and sparkles in the sun. They’re the kind of boots designed for kicking the shit out of people. I watch his back, lithe and black, disappear across the paving stones and through the French doors. I take a deep breath and then slowly exhale. My whole body’s trembling; that was intense. He seems like a real bad boy. That’s my kinda guy. Nino is seriously fucking hot.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Nino’s turned me on so much, I get dressed and pop next door to see Salvatore.
“Ah, Elizabeth. Good. I was going to come and get you,” he says. “I want you to pose for me.”
Pose for him? What? Oh yeah, he’s an artist.
“Um, OK,” I say. Not that he was asking.
Salvatore leads me through his villa and upstairs to his studio. The space is vast, light-filled, spacious: sculptures, sketches, folding ladders, long wooden tables, paintings, clay.
“Get naked,” he says.
I don’t move. “Um, are you sure? I’m pretty messed up.”
He gives me a dark look. He doesn’t like repeating himself. “Get naked. Now.”
Salvatore turns and walks toward the back of the studio, then brings an easel to the center of the room. The easel is taller than him by a couple of feet, with enormous sheets of creamy white paper. He takes a piece of charcoal from a box on the table and looks up.
He gestures to a chair. “Put your clothes on there.”
I undo the buttons on my dress with trembling fingers. Sure, Salvatore, whatever you say. Just so long as you fuck me again like you did last night. That blew my mind.
“You want a drink?” he asks. “Vodka?” He doesn’t wait for an answer.
“Sure,” I say, smiling. That’s just what I need. It’s been one of those days. . . . How did he know?
He walks over to a drink
s cabinet at the back of the studio. The creak of a hinge. The clatter of glass.
“Ice?”
“No, thanks.”
I take off my bra and hang it over the back of a carved wooden chair. I wonder if he carved it. My hands are shaking. Salvatore walks toward me carrying two little glasses and a bottle of Grey Goose. It looks like nice vodka. I usually buy Tesco’s own brand when it’s on offer. Salvatore walks like John Wayne. Now he’s standing so close I could reach out and touch him. I look down at my body, battered and blue. Salvatore doesn’t even seem to notice.
“And your pants,” he says, gesturing to my knickers.
I pull them off and drape them over the chair. They’re Beth’s red lace French knickers, my favorite of hers. I’m even wearing the matching bra (that never happened when I was Alvina). He sets down the glasses on a table, fills them to overflowing with crystal-clear vodka, then hands one to me. He looks into my eyes, his pupils dilated. Is this turning him on? We down the generous shots. It burns the back of my throat. The rush is instant. Now what?
He takes my hand in his.
“Sit like this,” he says, moving me into position. He places a wooden stool behind me, then lowers me down. He crosses one of my legs over the other, then spins me around so that I’m facing the wall. “Turn around like this. Look over your shoulder.” He takes my arm and moves it around my waist, then cups my chin and positions it too. He takes a step back, looks me up and down.
“Perfetta,” he says.
I smile. He’s so sexy: the cut-off jeans and paint-splattered shirt. His top has a rip all the way up one side; I can see his stomach through the tear: Channing Tatum abs and a heat-wave tan. There’s a dimple on his chin that I really want to kiss. He reaches over and pours out two more shots. He looks into my eyes and I look back.
“Don’t move,” he says, bringing a glass up to my lips and pouring the vodka straight down my throat.
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