LUCY GORDON: The Italian’s Miracle Family

This was what James would have seen from the apartment window, standing with his lover in his arms. Here they had held each other, kissed, teased, spoken fond words, then taken each other to bed-while she had lain tormented in England, while the life of her baby had died out of her.

‘That’s their window,’ Drago said. ‘I once saw them standing there together.’

‘You came to see them?’

‘Yes, but I made sure they didn’t find out. I skulked here like a lovesick schoolboy, hanging about to catch a glimpse of her, and retreating into the shadows when I saw her.’ He paused and added wryly, ‘And if you ever repeat that I’ll deny it and sue you for every penny.’

‘Don’t worry, I did the same. I passed James’s flat when I didn’t need to. But I didn’t see him. I suppose he’d already left.’

‘You’re lucky. I couldn’t stay away from this place. I pictured them walking by the river, looking at the lights in the water, saying to each other the things that lovers have always said in this spot.’

‘It’s perfect for it,’ she agreed, looking along the river to the Ponte Vecchio. ‘It’s the sort of place people mean when they say that Italy is a romantic country.’

The ironic way she said ‘romantic’ made him look at her in appreciation.

‘It can be romantic,’ he said. ‘It can also be prosaic, businesslike and full of the most depressing common-sense. Romance doesn’t lie in the country or the setting, but in the moment your eyes meet, and you know you’re living in a world where there’s only the two of you and nothing else exists.’

He added heavily, ‘The night I saw them at that window, I knew they had found that world, and I no longer existed for her.’

Just then a brilliantly lit boat came along the river, casting its glow upward to where he stood leaning forward on the low wall, illuminating his harsh features. Regarding him dispassionately, Alysa realised that, though far from handsome, he had something that many women would have found attractive.

James had been wonderfully good-looking in a boyish, conventional way. But there was nothing boyish about Drago. He was a man-strong-willed, yielding nothing. His manners could be clumsy, and he lacked what was commonly called ‘charm’.

Yet he had the mysterious something called ‘presence’. In a room he would draw all eyes, not just because he was large, but because of his uncompromising air, and because he mattered.

And even Alysa, who had loved James passionately, was fleetingly puzzled that Carlotta, the adored wife of Drago di Luca, had turned away from him and settled for less.

For herself men no longer existed. Otherwise she guessed she might have found him intriguing.

Drago was looking into the distance. Suddenly he dropped his head almost down to his chest, as though the burden had become too great to be borne.

She touched him. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘I know.’

A cold wind was blowing from the river, and she shivered. Drago didn’t speak, but he straightened up, putting his arms tightly around her, and rested his cheek on her head. It was the embrace of a comrade, not a lover, receiving her kindness thankfully, offering the same in return, and she accepted it, glad of the warmth.

‘Are you all right?’ he asked at last.

‘I’m fine-fine. But I don’t want to stay here any more.’

He kept his arm about her on the way back to the car. On the journey back to the hotel she sat in silence, feeling hollowed out. When he drew up outside, he handed her a card.

‘Here’s how to contact me if you need to,’ he said. ‘I shall hope to see you tomorrow. If not-thank you for everything you’ve done for me.’

He leaned over and briefly kissed her cheek. ‘Adio!’

‘Goodbye,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if-Goodbye.’

She hurried into the hotel without looking back.

That night she dreamed of James as she hadn’t done for months. The shield she’d created against him seemed to dissolve into mist, and he was there, standing at the window with Carlotta, laughing at her. She cried out for help, and for a moment seemed to sense Drago. But he vanished at once, and she knew herself to be alone again.

IN THEmorning she awoke unrefreshed, and the thought of going to the cemetery was suddenly more than she could bear. She would leave a day early, not risking another meeting with Drago.

But even as she thought this she was taking out clothes that might be proper for a ceremony in a graveyard. There was a severely tailored, dark-blue business suit complete with trousers. It occurred to her that she now owned very few skirts, and she’d brought none of them with her. Drago had been uncomfortably perceptive.

She donned the suit which was expensive, elegant and, above all, suitable.

This was something that had often made James tease her.

‘Why does everything have to be so perfectly chosen, so suitable ?’ he’d demanded, half-fondly, half-exasperated. Strange that she’d never noticed that note in his voice until now.

‘I’m a “suitable” person,’ she’d teased back.

‘Suitable for what?’

‘Suitable for advising people on what to do with their money. I couldn’t do that in a skimpy top and shorts. Hopefully I’ll be suitable for a partnership in the firm.’ She’d put her arms around him. ‘But what I really want to be is suitable for you.’

‘Ah, well, for that you need the skimpy top and shorts.’

Now, dressing to visit his grave, she tried not to remember that conversation, or the hectic hour in bed that had followed it.

She took a taxi there and arrived early, finding few other people, so that she had time to wander through the cemetery, studying the graves. Many of them were in family plots, carefully tended and adorned with flowers. One in particular held her attention because of the loving attention that had been lavished on it.

Everywhere that Alysa looked she saw red roses. They stretched up to the foot of the headstone with its ornate, carved decoration, and its two candle-holders, both with flickering candles that glowed against the picture of the woman buried beneath.

Looking closer, Alysa recognised Carlotta di Luca.

She stared. After everything that had happened the day before she’d thought nothing could surprise her again, but this lavish tribute went beyond what she had expected.

‘Ciao.’

‘Sono Inglese,’ she said, turning to see a priest standing close by. He was elderly and had kindly eyes.

‘Are you a friend of the family?’ he asked.

‘No,’ she said quickly. ‘I was just amazed to see roses at this time of year.’

‘Her husband has an arrangement with a firm that imports flowers. This is an exceptional delivery for today, but there’s a new bunch every week.’

Every week. After a whole year.

It might only have been for Tina, but she didn’t believe it. They weren’t just flowers, they were red roses, flaunted everywhere like a declaration. Drago was still passionately in love with the wife who had betrayed him.

‘Do any of the others have roses?’ she asked.

‘Oh no, some of them are almost never visited, which is sad.’

‘Just this one,’ she mused.

‘It’s good to see a man so devoted to his wife. But I sense that he’s still tormented by his memories, and has a long way to go before he finds peace.’

‘Are all the victims buried here?’

‘No. Some were visitors from other parts of the country, and their bodies were sent home-except for one, a man, who was a stranger. Nobody knew anything about him except his name and he was English. He didn’t seem to have any family. He was buried over there.’