Lucy Gordon - Married Under the Italian Sun

‘You must keep it because-because I’ve left you my most precious possession.’

‘But surely that should go to Angel? She’s the person you love.’

‘You don’t understand-my most precious possession-you must-’ Sam sat down suddenly, gasping.

‘Don’t get yourself upset,’ Vittorio said worriedly.

‘You must take it-otherwise I can’t feel safe-’

‘All right.’ He shoved the letter into his back pocket and looked anxiously into the old man’s face. ‘Are you feeling bad?’

‘Just a bit-short of breath,’ Sam gasped. ‘I’ll be all right in a minute.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Vittorio said anxiously. ‘Let’s get home quickly.’

He pulled Sam’s arm about his neck and raised him off the ground as easily as though he weighed nothing. Carrying him thus, he hurried to the house, calling Angel’s name.

I T WASquiet in the hospital corridor. Vittorio pushed the door open slowly and looked into the room where Sam lay connected to machines. Beside him sat Angel, her whole attention fixed on the old man, so that she wasn’t aware of Vittorio until his hand dropped lightly on her shoulder.

‘Any change?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said in a despairing voice. ‘He just lies there without moving. If only he could open his eyes and see me.’

‘He had a massive heart attack,’ Vittorio reminded her. ‘He nearly died there and then, but he’s still alive, and that’s a good sign.’

It was thirty-six hours since Sam had been rushed into the hospital after his collapse. At first it had seemed as though nothing could save him, but the doctors and nurses had fought hard, and had finally made his condition stable. For the moment that was as much as could be hoped.

Since then Angel had stayed there, refusing to leave Sam’s side, except when asked to move so that he could receive attention. Then she would flatten herself against the wall, almost invisible but never taking her eyes off him, until she could move back.

‘Have you had any sleep?’ Vittorio asked now.

‘How can I sleep? I daren’t. That might be the moment when…’ She shuddered. ‘When he opens his eyes,’ she finished firmly.

‘What about Roy and Frank? Can’t they relieve you?’

‘I’ve sent them away. They’ve hardly had any time off since they arrived, and Sam won’t need them while he’s here. So I said they should take a few days’ holiday.’

Vittorio sat down on the other side of the bed from where he could partly see Angel’s face. In such a brief time she had become thinner, and drawn. If she’d looked at him he would have reached out and taken her hand, but she seemed barely aware of him, and he wondered if he himself was to blame. If there was a distance between them now, who but himself had set it there?

‘Berta packed a bag of overnight things for you,’ he said. ‘I left it there by your foot.’

She gave him a brief smile. ‘Thank you.’

Night was falling. A nurse entered, checked the machines, spoke a quiet word to Angel, and departed. They sat in silence for some time until something about the angle of her head made him lean closer, and discover that she was asleep.

He immediately fixed his attention on Sam, silently taking over her vigil, not moving until two hours had passed and Angel suddenly jerked awake.

‘Sam!’

‘He’s all right,’ Vittorio said. ‘I’ve been watching him. I’d have awoken you if there’d been any change.’

‘Thank you.’ Seeing him rise to his feet, she added, ‘Yes, you go home now and get some sleep.’

‘I’m just going to get you a coffee,’ he said.

He returned with refreshments for two, and she devoured hers, famished.

‘Can you remember when you last ate?’ he asked tenderly.

She shook her head, before draining her coffee.

He immediately went to the machine to replace it, returning also with a bottle of mineral water and some fruit, which he set beside her.

‘For later.’

‘Even Berta doesn’t look after me as well as this,’ she said gratefully. ‘But you must be tired. You don’t have to stay.’

‘No, I don’t have to,’ he said quietly, and sat down.

She smiled. ‘Thank you.’

After a while she said, ‘I didn’t get the chance to ask you what happened when he collapsed. How did you come to be alone with him in the garden?’

‘He came out to see me.’

‘Without Frank or Roy?’

‘I think he enjoyed giving them the slip. He was like a kid let out of school.’

‘Yes, he’s sweet when he’s in that mood. I remember playing truant once, and he caught me, and instead of being angry he was full of plans about running away and never having to go to school again. Then, of course, I began to see how impractical it was, and decided to go back.’

‘Which was what he’d meant all the time?’

‘Of course. He’s always so clever about things like that. Go on telling me what happened.’

‘We had a chat, then he started gasping, so I brought him in.’

‘What were you talking about?’

‘Oh, this and that, silly things, nothing much.’

Inwardly Vittorio cursed himself for his own clumsiness. He could hardly tell her that Sam had been planning to make him his heir, even though it had been no more than a fantasy. Yet when he tried to think of something else his mind seized up, no ideas would come, and he was reduced to ‘this and that’.

But, to his relief, Angel didn’t seem to notice anything unsatisfactory about his answer, and soon she nodded off again.

She’d moved her chair further up the bed, so that she could rest her head against a chest of drawers, giving him a better look at her face. Angel had largely disappeared, leaving behind a woman who was a stranger to glamour. Her figure slumped inelegantly, her face was exhausted and ravaged by fear and grief. She was closer to plain than he had ever seen before, and his heart was wrung for her. He had to fight an impulse to take her into his arms, and draw her head onto his shoulder so that she might find rest with him.

He didn’t yield, but he couldn’t resist the temptation to kiss her, doing it so gently that her sleep was not disturbed.

They lived like that for two days. For all that time he acted as her servant, fetching and carrying for her, returning to the villa and bringing her back meals from Berta. Because Vittorio stood watch she was able to snatch precious hours of sleep.

As the time passed without Sam regaining consciousness Vittorio could see in Angel’s face that she knew what was to happen.

‘It’s been so long,’ she said sadly. ‘I think I could just about bear losing him if only he would wake and speak to me, just once.’

‘Will that really make so much difference?’ he asked, for he was afraid for her. ‘He knew how much you loved him. Isn’t that what really matters?’

‘I know that’s the sensible way to see it, but I long so much for a few more minutes, just to look into his eyes and know it’s really him.’

‘Have you tried talking to him?’

‘I did at first, but what’s the use? He can’t hear me.’

‘How do you know? They say hearing is the last sensation to go. He might be able to hear everything. Talk about your childhood, remind him of that time you played truant. Say anything, so that he can hear your voice.’

For hour after hour Angel leaned close, calling back moments from her childhood that she hadn’t remembered for years. As she did so it seemed to her that the whole of their time together was being relived there in that quiet room.

Sometimes Vittorio slipped away to give her privacy, but sometimes he stayed because he couldn’t bear to leave. In those hours he felt he learned more of her than ever before, and gradually a picture built up in his mind of the lonely, hurt child she had once been, and the old man who had overturned his life to make her happy. He began to see Sam as he had once been, a trickster, a wit, a loveable idiot, and the most generous, great-hearted man who had ever lived. He understood now why she had repaid the debt, overturning her own life to make his last years happy. And he knew that if Sam died without speaking to her, he would feel her pain as his own.