Lucy Gordon: A Family For Keeps

'Can we have dinner?' she asked. 'I'm hungry.'

'She'll be here,' he said, despairing.

'It's all right, Uncle. Honestly. You were right. People always leave you.'

' Cara , I wish you'd forget I ever said that'

'But it's true.' Then, in a strange voice, she said, 'I begged her not to go-but she did-and she never came back.'

It was as though a phantom had flitted past, chilling the air for a moment before it vanished.

'Who are you talking about?' he asked, barely able to speak.

'Let's have something to eat,' she repeated.

'Rosa, who were you-?'

But it was useless. The phantom had gone. He let the subject drop, fearful of doing damage if he persisted.

For the rest of that evening she behaved normally, even cheerfully. You had to know the truth, he thought, to recognise the storm she was suppressing. Nor could he help her, because she wouldn't let him.

He kept hoping that Julia would find a way to call them soon. But the evening passed with no word from her, and at last it was time to go to bed.

He was awoken in the morning by Gemma, shaking him urgently.

'I can't find Rosa,' she said.

He threw on his clothes and checked every room in the apartment, but it was a formality. In his heart he knew where she had gone. 'Has the phone rung?'

Gemma shook her head.

'All right, I'll be back soon.'

He called for a water taxi and reached the nearest landing stage just as it arrived.

'The airport, as fast as you can,' he said tersely.

He entered the terminal at a run and kept on running until he saw Rosa sitting, watching the arrival doors with terrible intensity.

She glanced at him as he sat beside her, and something in her face silenced all words of reproach.

'How long have you been here?' he asked quietly.

'A couple of hours.'

He looked up at the board. It showed two planes landed from England, but he didn't know if either of them was Julia's.

'She'll be here,' he said. 'She promised.'

There was no reply, but he felt a small hand creep into his and grip it so tightly that he winced with pain.

The doors slid open. Passengers were beginning to stream out. Rosa's gaze became fixed again, as if her whole life depended on this moment. Vincenzo too watched, trying to distinguish one figure from the many others.

But it was Rosa who saw her. Leaping up with a sudden shriek, she began to run.

'Mummy-Mummy-Mummy!'

Heads turned as the child darted through the crowd to throw herself into a pair of open arms. With a heart overflowing with relief, Vincenzo followed her until he was a few feet away from Julia, and was in time to see Rosa draw back to look her radiantly in the face and say, 'You came back.'

'You came back.'

'Yes, darling. I always meant to, it was just the fog.'

But Rosa shook her head, impatient that Julia hadn't understood.

'You didn't come back before,' she said.

Then the first inkling of the truth came to Julia and her startled eyes met Vincenzo's.

'Before?' she asked cautiously, hardly daring to hope.

'You went away before,' Rosa cried, 'and you never came back.'

Julia dropped to her knees, holding onto Rosa and searching her face.

'Do you remember that?' she whispered.

Rosa nodded. 'You gave me Danny, and then you went away. And I cried. I didn't want you to go, but you went.'

'Do you know-who I am?'

'I-think so,' Rosa said slowly. 'I think-you're Mummy.'

'Yes, darling. Yes, I am-I am, I am-'

She buried her face against Rosa and wept tears of joy, feeling them sweep away all the other tears she had cried through so many bitter, anguished nights.

'But I don't understand-' Rosa said.

'I know, piccina -this is your mummy,' Vincenzo said. 'There'll be time to understand later. Let's all go home.'

He took charge of Julia's trolley, and wheeled it out of the airport, glancing over his shoulder to see where they were following, walking slowly because they were hugging each other at the same time.

He helped the boatman with the suitcases, noticing that Julia had managed to acquire several new ones, and that they were heavy. By the time they caught up, everything was ready for departure.

He sat in the front, leaving them together in the back, just sitting, holding hands, not speaking through the roar of the engine, simply content in their discovery. As they sped across the water he wondered where the future led. He had only to glance at the faces of the mother and child in the back to know that each of them had all they wanted.

At last the boat came to a halt in the Fondamenta Soranzo.

'You need to be here tonight,' he said in answer to Julia's look of surprise.

While waiting for Julia's arrival he'd already called Gemma to say that Rosa was safe, so they arrived to find the apartment empty, Gemma having taken Carlo shopping.

Vincenzo assigned himself the role of cook and waiter, plying them with breakfast while they looked at each other in their new light.

'Why did you go away?' Rosa asked sadly. 'You left me, and you never wrote or sent cards, and Papa said you were dead-' Her voice shook.

Until this moment Julia had never quite decided how much she would tell Rosa when the time came. To speak of prison and her father's betrayal seemed terrible. But now she saw that the child was carrying a burden that crushed her, the belief that her mother had callously abandoned her.

'I had no choice, darling,' she said softly. 'They put me in prison for something I didn't do, and then your father took you away. I didn't know where you were, but I never stopped loving you, and as soon as I could I came looking for you.'

She knew she'd judged right when she saw the load lift from Rosa's face. Her mother had not, after all, walked away from her. Nothing really mattered beside that.

Rosa noticed Vincenzo carrying Julia's things upstairs.

'Are you coming to live with us now?' she asked, thrilled.

'I'll be here tonight, and we can talk all we want. After that-'

After that-what? She sought Vincenzo's face for some sign of what he was feeling, but his features revealed nothing.

'You can have my room,' he said.

'That's very kind of you, but you-'

'I'll be fine.' He almost snapped out the words. 'It's time I was getting to work. I've neglected it a bit recently.'

'I'm sorry about what I did,' Rosa told him. 'I mean, running off. But you see-'

'Yes, I do see,' he said, ruffling her hair. 'But we were very worried about you. I'm so glad you're safe. Now I must go.'

They didn't see him for the rest of the day. For Julia it was a happy time, spent with her daughter, exchanging memories, feeling the bonds assert themselves.

'I always knew there was something about you,' Rosa confided. 'I didn't know what, but I knew you weren't just anyone.'

Vincenzo telephoned to say that he'd contacted Rosa's school and arranged for her to have a few days off for them to be together. But he hung up before Julia could thank him.

Late that night she waited up for him to return. There were so many things that she wanted to say to him too, if only he would be here. She resisted the thought that there was something ominous in his choosing to be absent.

As the hours passed she went to bed and lay awake, listening, longing for him. Now her heart reached out to him as never before as she understood the full extent of his generosity. He'd known from the start that he would lose Rosa as he had lost almost everything else. But he had put no barriers between them. On the contrary he'd done all he could to help the two of them rediscover each other, whatever the cost to himself.

She wanted to see him, hold him, and pour out her feelings now that the road was clear for them at last.