Lucy Gordon - Married Under the Italian Sun

I’ve left Toni with you. I can’t take him with me, and I know you’ll love him and care for him.

He crumpled the letter in his hand, turning around sharply as though he could discover a way out. She was wrong, he thought passionately. He knew her true self. It was the loving, generous woman he’d found in his arms, and then been fool enough to throw away.

But, whatever she said, it wasn’t too late for them. Somehow it would be possible to find her, and make her see that they belonged together.

He spread out the letter again, smoothing the creases, and it was only then that he saw the last lines.

My darling, please don’t try to find me. This is something I need to do. I shall love you always. Thank you for everything.

It was signed ‘Angela’. Not ‘Angel’.

As he read the last lines again and again, Vittorio knew that he had no choice. He must give her the peace she asked for. It was the only thing left that he could do for her.

Hardly knowing what he did, he went out into the hall and began to wander through the house, trying not to hear the empty way it echoed around him. A thousand times he’d told himself that he would never rest while the usurper was there. Now she was gone, driven out by harsh words and ruthless pride, and the place was his again in a triumph so total that he could never have imagined it.

He shivered.

The Ristorante Michelangelo stood in a small side street in the northern part of Rome. It was always busy, for the food was plentiful and cheap, and the wine good. To students of the nearby university it was a place to congregate.

To some of them it was also a godsend, providing employment that helped to keep them financially above water, but only the poorest needed to take up the offer. One face had caused a good deal of comment, but to the cheeky lad who had said, ‘Hey, aren’t you Angel?’ she had replied simply, ‘No, I was once. Not any more.’

That had been eight months ago. Nobody asked now.

Tonight it was late, her feet were tired, and she was glad it would soon be time to close. Just one more customer.

‘What can I get you, signore ?’ she asked, suppressing a yawn.

‘I’ve found what I came for,’ he said.

She looked up from her pad, and paled. ‘How did you find me?’

‘It took a while,’ Vittorio said. ‘I tried the English universities first, but then I realised you’d still be in Italy. Eventually I found you here.’

Somebody called her. ‘I have customers to see to,’ she told him.

‘I’ll wait for you outside.’

That gave her time to take command of herself. She was furious with him for disturbing her hard-won peace, but she could cope. This was the life she’d chosen, and even found some happiness in it. Now she could demonstrate, to him and herself, how complete was that victory.

Even so, when the time came to leave, she slipped out the back.

‘I thought so.’ Vittorio sounded pleased with himself. ‘It’s exactly what I’d have done.’

He moved out from where he’d been waiting, leaning against the wall. The light from a wall lamp fell directly onto him, giving him an eerie look in the near darkness.

‘You’d have looked silly if I’d gone out the front way,’ Angel said, trying not to let her voice shake. Even with the first shock gone, his impact was stunning.

‘No, I can see the front door from here. You were never going to escape me. You did so once. Not again.’

As if to prove him wrong, she walked ahead, forcing him to hurry to catch up with her.

‘Don’t go so fast. We have to talk.’

‘Maybe it’s better if we don’t.’

‘Angel, wait-’

But if anything she walked faster so he raised his voice and called, ‘Angela!’

That made her stop and turn to face him.

‘What is there to talk about?’

‘Aren’t you curious about why I sought you out? I wasn’t going to look for you at first, but then something happened-it’ll take me a while to tell you about it.’

‘All right, I’ll take you home. Just for a while.’

Her home turned out to be a tiny apartment at the top of a three-storey building

‘It’s a bit untidy,’ she said. ‘That’s my roommates.’

‘You share this little place?’

It was the best she could afford, he realised. He looked around, thinking of the villa she had left, the property that had been hers. And now this.

They looked at each other for a moment, reading the lonely months in each other’s faces.

Just by being here he made it look different, she realised. She’d come to this down-at-heel place when the university had accepted her, determined to make her precious little store of money last. Here she’d fought her lonely battle, jumping every time someone came to the door, half hoping, half fearful, never quite knowing which one she felt more.

There had been temptations, times when she’d wanted to give it all up, run back to him, and forget everything else as long as they could be together, with love. But she’d fought back, using a mind that had received too little exercise, forcing it to expand, bending and hammering it into shape until it became a formidable instrument, and from somewhere she’d rediscovered the joy of learning.

It had proved all she’d hoped. With pleasure she had discovered that what happened inside her head could fight back against the loneliness of her heart and the aching need of her body. Not always, and not with finality. But the weapon, once discovered, could be used many times. With that, she’d made the most important discovery in life. She could cope.

And then he had to return, here where she’d won her battle, dimming it slightly with reminders of things she couldn’t afford to remember, because then the battle would have to be fought again.

As if he could read her thoughts, Vittorio said, ‘You made it, then. University, history of art, the academic life. Everything you wanted. Are you happy?’

‘Yes,’ she said, adding after a moment, ‘Sometimes.’

‘Sometimes,’ he echoed. ‘Yes, I know about that. I’m happy sometimes. I was happy when the harvest came in, the best there’s ever been, the richest, the ripest, the most beautiful. It was your harvest too. Why weren’t you there?’

‘You know why. It was never my harvest.’

‘I stood and watched the trucks rolling away with our produce, that we’d schemed and planned for. But then I realised I was standing alone, and that was the end of happiness. Look.’

He handed her an envelope full of photographs. It was all there, just as he’d said, an abundance of ripeness, beauty and success. Everything they had wanted.

‘I’m glad,’ she said, coming to the last picture. ‘Oh, this one…’

It showed Vittorio standing there with Luca and Toni.

‘Toni misses you,’ Vittorio said. ‘He makes do with me, but he’s still yours, and he knows it. He hates being in that house without you, almost as much as I do.’

‘Please, don’t-’

‘Once that place belonged to me absolutely,’ he continued remorselessly. ‘Now your ghost is there, in every shadow. I can’t make her go away, perhaps because I don’t really want to.’

‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she asked helplessly. ‘I was managing-’

‘Yes, so was I. Managing. But it’s not enough.’

‘Why now, after all this time? Why come to find me now?’

‘Because Sam told me to.’

‘Vittorio, please, that isn’t funny.’

‘I’m deadly serious. You once asked me what Sam and I talked about just before he collapsed, and I told you it was about this and that. That was true, but there was more. He’d been writing his will and said he wanted to leave me his most precious possession. He gave me the will, I put it away and then forgot it when he got sick and died.’