Yesterday’s, the day before—and the day before, Catherine counted out bleakly. A contraceptive pill for each day since Vito had come back into her life, in fact.
‘I hate you,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve been messing up my life since I was twenty-three years old, and here you are, six years on, still messing it up.’
About to remind her that it wasn’t him who’d forgotten to take the damn pills, Vito bit the words back again. ‘Getting embroiled in a fight about whose fault it is is not going to solve the problem,’ he threw at her instead.
‘Nothing can solve it,’ Catherine countered hopelessly. ‘The damage has already been done.’
Mouth set in a straight line, Vito said not another word as he drove them higher and higher, until eventually he pulled the car off the road and onto a piece of scrub land that overlooked the kind of views people paid fortunes to see.
They didn’t see the beauty in it, though. There could have been pitch-blackness out there in front of them for all they knew. And they were surrounded by perfect silence. Not a bird, not a house, not another car, not even a breeze to rustle the dry undergrowth. In fact they could have been the only two people left in the world, which suited exactly how they were both feeling.
Two people alone with the kind of problem that shut out the rest of the world.
‘I’m sorry,’ Vito murmured.
Maybe he felt he needed to say it, but Catherine shrugged. ‘Not your fault,’ she absolved him. ‘It’s me who’s been unforgivably stupid.’
‘Maybe we will get lucky and nothing will come of it,’ he suggested, in an attempt to place a glimmer of light into their darkness.
‘Don’t count on it,’ Catherine replied heavily. ‘Twice before we’ve taken risks, and twice I got pregnant. Why should this time be any different?’
Why indeed? was the echo that came back from the next drumming silence.
‘There has to be something we can do!’ he muttered harshly. And on a sudden flash of inspiration said, ‘We will drive to the doctor’s. Get that—morning-after pill—or whatever it is they call it...’
Catherine flinched as if he had plunged a knife in her. ‘Do you know what they call those pills, Vito?’ she whispered painfully. ‘Little abortions,’ she informed him starkly. ‘Because that’s what they do. They abort the egg whether it is fertilised or not.’
‘But you also know what they told you,’ he reminded her. ‘Another pregnancy like the last one could be dangerous.’
Her tear-washed eyes shimmered in the sunlight. ‘So I abort one life to safeguard my own life?’
The anguish she saw in his eyes was for her; Catherine knew that. But she couldn’t deal with it. And on the dire need to escape from both him and the whole wretched scenario, she opened the car door and climbed out.
Leaving Vito sitting there staring ahead of him, she walked, barefooted, across the dusty ground to a lonely cypress tree and leaned against its dry old trunk.
First she had almost lost Santo, due to mid-term complications. She had managed to hold onto him until he was big enough to cope outside his mother’s womb, and the doctors had assured her that the same condition rarely struck twice in the same woman. But they had been wrong. And the next time it had happened she’d almost lost her own life along with her baby.
‘No more babies,’ they had announced. ‘Your body won’t take the physical trauma.’
No more babies...
A movement beside her made her aware that Vito had come to lean a shoulder on the other side of the tree. For a man who had only had enough time to drag on the first clothes that came to hand he looked remarkably stylish in his light chinos and a plain white tee shirt. But then, that was Vito, she mused hollowly. A man so inherently special that no one in the world would believe that anything in his life would ever go wrong for him.
His marriage had. From its unfortunate beginning to its tragic ending.
Catherine didn’t count this latest encounter. Because in truth she no longer felt married to Vito; if anything, she felt more as she had done when she first met him: alive, excited, electrifyingly stimulated. Which was why they’d ended up in bed making love like there was no tomorrow. It was a taste of the old days—irresistible.
And now the piper demands his payment, she concluded dully.
‘Santo needs his mother, Catherine,’ Vito stated levelly—nothing more. He didn’t need to elaborate. Catherine knew exactly what he was telling her here.
They were back to celebrating the living, she supposed. Santo needs his mother alive and well and very much kicking. Tears burned her eyes again. She blinked them away. ‘I’ll take the pill,’ she said.
He didn’t say anything. Instead he just continued to lean there, staring out at his homeland as if he was watching Naples sink beneath a sea of lava and was as helpless to stop that from happening as he was to stop Catherine from having to make that decision.
Without another word, she walked back to the car and climbed into it. Vito followed her, got in, fired the engine and drove them away, down the hillside this time, and into Naples proper, where he took grim pleasure in fighting with the unremitting flood of traffic before eventually turning into an arched alleyway which led through to a private courtyard belonging to his offices.
Climbing out of the car, he came around to Catherine’s side, opened her door and helped her to alight. She didn’t put up any protest, not even when he silently turned her around and did up the rest of her zip before leading the way into the building. His concierge took one look at his face and with only a brief nod of his head backed warily away, but his glance swept curiously over Catherine’s dusty bare feet and tangled mane of bright hair as the lift doors shut them away.
It was getting late by now. The working day was over so the place was empty of people. Leading the way to his own office suite, Vito pointed to a door. ‘Take a shower,’ he instructed, and walked off to his desk to pick up the telephone.
As she stepped into the bathroom she heard him talking to his mother, making some excuse about them going shopping on impulse and forgetting to tell anyone before leaving.
It was as good an excuse as any, she supposed, so long as no one had thought to check their bedroom, where the evidence of what they had been doing before they went out was painfully clear to see.
The next call Vito made was out of her hearing. It was curt, it was tight, and it didn’t improve his temper as he began his third call, instructing a fashion boutique a short block from here, that knew him through his mother, to deliver the full range of whatever they had in stock to fit a British size ten, including shoes and underwear.
Catherine still hadn’t emerged from the bathroom by the time the concierge came in, laden down with the boutique’s delivery. In any other mood Vito might have been interested in what he had got for his money, but since most of the items were simply a bluff to fool his mother, he merely told the man to place the purchases on the low leather sofa beneath the window, then dismissed him.
But before he went the concierge handed him a different kind of purchase entirely. It was small, it was light, and it bore the name of a well-respected medical practice in Naples.
Vito was still staring grimly down at it when Catherine emerged from the bathroom, wrapped in his own short white towelling robe that was way too big for her. She looked wet, she looked clean—and utterly miserable.
‘I couldn’t find a hairdryer,’ she said, indicating her head, where her hair hung straight and at least five shades darker against the whiteness of her face.
‘I’ll find it in a minute,’ he replied, walking towards her.
She wasn’t looking at him, but then she hadn’t done so since they’d made love earlier—not with eyes that could see him anyway.
‘Here,’ he said gruffly, and handed her the small package.
She knew what it was the moment she looked at it, even though her eyes couldn’t focus on the writing. ‘Two now, two more in twelve hours,’ he instructed.
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A cold chill went sweeping through her, turning her fingers to ice as she reached out and took the packet from him.
‘I need a drink,’ she said.
He nodded briskly and moved away. ‘Tea, coffee, iced water?’ he enquired, opening the doors to a huge drinks cabinet equipped with everything from kettle to cocktail shaker.
‘Water,’ she chose, then slid her hands into the cavernous pockets of the robe before lifting herself to take a forced interest in her surroundings.
This place hadn’t changed much since she’d last been here either, she saw. Same classic trappings of a well-to-do businessman, same hi-tech equipment, only a lot more of it.
He turned with the glass of water. ‘Catherine—’
‘Shut up,’ she said flatly, and, ignoring the grim tension in his stance, she made herself walk over to the sofa where the concierge had placed Vito’s purchases. ‘For me?’ she asked.
‘Take your pick,’ he replied. ‘There should be a selection of everything you will require.’
‘The man thinks of everything,’ she dryly mocked as her fingers flicked open boxes and checked out bags with about as much interest as a hungry dog being offered a plastic bone to eat. ‘Troubleshooter extraordinaire.’
He didn’t answer, but then, why should he bother? It was only the truth after all. For who else did she know who could achieve so much in the time it took her to have a shower?
‘I’ll take these,’ she said, choosing at random a teal blue silk dinner dress and some matching underwear. Going back towards the bathroom, she paused in the doorway. ‘The hairdryer?’ she prompted him.
He walked over to her, then stopped to silently hand her the requested glass of water that she seemed to have had already forgotten about, before he slid past her into the bathroom and unearthed a hairdryer from the back of a vanity unit.
Grimly plugging it in, he left it ready for her on the marble top, then turned to leave her to it. In her hand was the glass of water. The water was to help her swallow the medication he had given to her. He walked past her, then stopped, tensely swung back. ‘Catherine—’
She shut the door in his face.
Fifteen minutes later she came out again, hair dried into some semblance of a style, her clothes looking unexpectedly fantastic, considering the way they had been chosen. The dress was short, slim, and edged with a layer of fine black lace. Standing staring out of the window, Vito turned when he heard her, then went still, his sombre eyes hooding over as they slid down her.
‘Shoes,’ was all he said, though, pointing to a pair of teal-blue strappy sandals standing neatly by the sofa. Everything else had gone—where to Catherine didn’t know, nor care.
She found out when they arrived back at the car and saw the back seat was full of packages. The car’s roof had been raised, and as they climbed inside she felt the difference as a humid heat quickly enveloped her. Vito started the car and switched on the air-conditioning system, then they drove off, back home to their twisted version of normality.
It was growing quite dark by the time they arrived at the house. Lights were burning on the driveway, offering a warm welcome that didn’t touch Catherine.
As they walked into the house Santo appeared, already dressed for bed in his pyjamas. With a delighted whoop he came running towards them. Whether it was deliberate, Catherine wasn’t certain, but Vito took a small step backwards then slid stealthily behind her, as if he was trying to reduce Santo’s options so he would run into his mother’s arms and not his father’s.
If it was deliberate then it was a very selfless gesture, one that showed a deep sensitivity to her needs right now. And an understanding that her emotions had taken a big enough battering today without having her son giving it a further knock by choosing to hug his father before hugging her.
So she received her warm bundle of love and hugged him to her as if her life depended on holding this precious child of theirs. And with his arms around her neck and his legs around her waist Santo chatted away about what he had been doing, with absolutely no idea that his mother was frantically fighting a battle with tears again.
It was only when she eventually set her son down again, so he could go to his father, and she saw the way Vito held Santo to him in much the same way that she had done, that she allowed herself to acknowledge that he too was suffering.
It was too much—much too much for her to cope with right now, when she could barely cope with her own inner agony. So she walked away, wishing she could just go and crawl into bed, pull the covers over her head and stay there for ever.
But she couldn’t do that, because Luisa was waiting for them and expected bright smiles and conversation. Catherine played the game to the best of her ability, and even managed to smile at Luisa teasing Vito about the new wardrobe of clothes he had just bought Catherine because her own luggage hadn’t arrived.
‘But it came while you were out!’ her mother-in-law laughingly informed them. ‘How terribly impatient and extravagant of you, darling!’ Her eyes twinkled teasingly at her son, and why were they twinkling? Because Luisa was seeing the gesture as a demonstration of how wonderfully romantic things must be between her son and his wife—when really things couldn’t be more wretched. ‘And what a lovely treat for you, Catherine...!’
Dinner that night was just another ordeal she had to force herself to get through. She had to eat when she didn’t want to, smile when she didn’t want to, had to make pleasant innocuous conversation when she didn’t want to. And through it all she had to watch Vito watch her from beneath heavily veiled eyes, as if he was expecting her at any moment to jump up and start screaming the place down.
She didn’t really blame him, for she knew that beneath her relaxed exterior she was so uptight it was actually beginning to hurt. She had been avoiding him like the plague since they got back. If he walked into a room then she walked out of it; if he went to speak to her she pretended she didn’t hear. Now, across the dinner table, if she found herself being forced into making eye contact with him she did it from behind a frosted veil, which thankfully kept him out of focus.
But that didn’t mean that she wasn’t aware of his tension, or of the greyish pallor sitting just beneath the surface of his golden skin that had been there ever since he had handed her that packet in his office.
‘...Marietta...’
Suddenly feeling as though a thousand sharp needles were embedding themselves into her flesh, Catherine blinked her mind back into focus on the conversation at the table.
‘She was sorry she couldn’t be here to welcome you home today,’ Luisa was saying innocently. ‘But Vito saw fit to send her off to New York on some wild-goose chase she insists did not really warrant her attention.’ A censorious glance at her son gained no response whatsoever. ‘Still, since Vito’s priority had to be here with you and Santo, one of them had to go, I suppose,’ Luisa allowed, with a little shrug meant, Catherine presumed, to dismiss her son’s silence. ‘She will be back by the weekend, though, so maybe we could all get together then for a celebratory dinner—which would be nice, don’t you think, Catherine? The two of you were such good friends once upon a time. I’m sure you must be looking forward to reviving the friendship.’
‘Excuse me.’ She stood up with an abruptness that surprised everyone. ‘Forgive me, Luisa, but I’m afraid I can’t sit here any longer—’
‘Aren’t you well, Catherine?’ It was a logical conclusion to make, bearing in mind that her dinner plate was sitting untouched, right in front of her. And at last Luisa seemed to notice Catherine’s strained pallor, while, with the kind of good manners that had been bred into him, Vito rose gracefully to his feet also. But he was still watching her like a hawk, and Catherine wanted to scratch his blasted eyes out because he knew his mother had just advantageously stopped her from saying something she would have regretted later about Luisa’s precious Marietta!
‘Just tired, that’s all.’ She smiled a weak smile that was really an acknowledgem
ent of her own sense of relief at Luisa’s interruption. For hadn’t it always been easier to leave Luisa with her rose-tinted glasses in place than be the one to rip them from her? ‘It has been a long day in one way or another.’
‘Of course, dear,’ Luisa murmured understandingly. ‘And you are not used to our late dining habits—which probably accounts for your lack of appetite tonight...’
‘Yes.’ Catherine kept on smiling the wretched smile and bent to brush a kiss across Luisa’s cheek before mumbling some incoherent remark about seeing Vito later as she stumbled wearily from the table.
By the time she had prepared for bed and carried out her most dearest wish by crawling beneath the sheets and pulling them right over her, she had hardly any energy left to do much more than switch her brain off.
So she was completely lost to a blessed oblivion when a pair of arms firmly gathering her in brought her swimming back to consciousness.
‘No.’ Her response was instant rejection.
‘Be still,’ Vito’s deep voice flatly countered, and, drawing her into the warm curve of his body, he firmly clamped her there. ‘You may wish to pretend that I do not exist right now, but I do, and I am here—’
‘While your lover is several thousand miles away,’ she tagged on waspishly.
‘Marietta is your obsession, not mine,’ he replied. ‘But since you have decided to bring her into this bed with us, may I remind you that you are here to replace her? So stop fighting me, Catherine.’ Once again his arms tightened to subdue her wriggling struggles. ‘You may like to believe that you are the only miserable one in this bed, but you are not. And I need to hold you as much as you need to be held like this.’
He wasn’t talking about Marietta now, she realised. He was talking about something far more emotive. Impulsively she opened her mouth to say something about that—then changed her mind, for her emotions were in such a dreadful mess that remaining silent seemed wiser at this moment than saying anything that could well start another quarrel.
So she subsided, reluctantly, into the warmth of his embrace, felt his muscles relax when he recognised her surrender. And as she began taking on board other things, like his nakedness against her thin cotton pyjamas, she bitterly wished that the man wasn’t so physically alluring.
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