Dick Francis - The Danger

'Oh, darling,' Miranda said in distress, hugging him.

'The hole is all filled in,' I said. 'There is no hole any more in the floor. Nobody can fall down it.'

The poor little wretch would have nightmares about it perhaps all his life. Any person who could find a prevention for nightmares, I often thought, would deserve a Nobel prize.

I stood up and said to Alessia and Popsy, 'Let's go for a stroll,' and when they stood up I said to Dominic, 'Give your mummy lots of kisses. She cried all the time, when those horrid men took you. She needs a lot of kisses.'

She needed the kisses her husband hadn't given her, I thought. She needed the comfort of strong adult arms. She was having to generate strength enough to see herself and Dominic through alone, and it still seemed to me a toss up whether she'd survive triumphantly or end in breakdown.

Popsy, Alessia and I walked slowly over to one of the schooling fences and stood there talking.

'Do you think you did right, reminding him of the hole in the floor?' Popsy asked.

'Splinters have to come out,' I said.

'Or the wound festers?'

'Yes.'

'How did you know what they threatened?'

'I didn't know. I just guessed. It was so likely, wasn't it? The hole was there. He was crying. Shut up you little bleeder or we'll put you down it.'

Popsy blinked. Alessia swallowed. 'Tell Miranda,' I said to her, 'that it takes a long time to get over something as awful as being kidnapped. Don't let her worry if Dominic wets the bed and clings to her. Tell her how it's been with you. How insecure it made you feel. Then she'll be patient with Dominic once the first joy of having him back has cooled down.'

'Yes, I'll tell her."

Popsy looked from Alessia to me and back again, but said nothing, and it was Alessia herself who half smiled and gave voice to Popsy's thought.

'I've clung to you all right,' she said to me, looking briefly over to Miranda and then back. 'When you aren't here, and I feel panicky, I think of you, and it's a support. I'll tell Miranda that too. She needs someone to cling to herself, poor girl.'

'You make Andrew sound like a sort of trellis for climbing plants,' Popsy said. We walked again, as far as the next schooling fence, and stopped, looking out across the hills. High cirrus clouds curled in feathery fronds near the sun, omen of bad weather to come. We'd never have found Dominic, I thought, if it had rained the day after he was taken and there had been no canal-digger with his grandmother on the beach.

'You know,' Alessia said, suddenly stirring, 'it's time for me to go back to racing.' The words came out as if unpremeditated and seemed to surprise her.

'My darling!' Popsy exclaimed. 'Do you mean it?'

'I think I mean it at this moment,' Alessia said hesitantly, smiling nervously. 'Whether I mean it tomorrow morning is anyone's guess.'

We all saw, however, that it was the first trickle through the dike. I put my arms round Alessia and kissed her: and in an instant it wasn't a gesture of congratulation but something much fiercer, something wholly different. I felt the fire run through her in return and then drain away, and I let go of her thinking that the basement had taken charge of me right and proper.

I smiled. Shrugged my shoulders. Made no comment.

'Did you mean that?' Alessia demanded.

'Not exactly,' I said. 'It was a surprise.'

'It sure was.' She looked at me assessingly and then wandered away on her own, not looking back.

'You've pruned her off the trellis,' Popsy said, amused. 'The doctor kissed the patient; most unprofessional.'

'I'll kiss Dominic too if it will make you feel better.'

She took my arm and we strolled in comradely fashion back to the Land Rover and the rug. Miranda was lying on her back, dozing, with Dominic loosely sprawled over her stomach. His eyes, too, were shut, his small face relaxed, the contours rounded and appealing.

'Poor little sweetheart,' Popsy murmured. 'Pity to wake them.'

Miranda woke naturally when Alessia returned, and with Dominic still asleep we set off on the short drive home. One of the bumps in the rutted Down track must have roused him, though, because I saw him half sit up in Miranda's arms and then lie back, with Miranda's head bent over him as if to listen.

Alessia gave me a wild look and she too bent her head to listen, but I could hear nothing above the sound of the engine, and anyway it didn't seem to me that Dominic's lips were moving.

'Stop the car,' Alessia said to Popsy, and Popsy, hearing the urgency, obeyed.

Dominic was humming.

For a few seconds the low noise went on: randomly, I thought at first, though certainly not on one note.

'Do you know what that is?' Alessia said incredulously, when the child stopped. 'I simply don't believe it.'

'What, then?' I said.

For answer she hummed the phrase again, exactly as Dominic had done. He sat up in Miranda's arms and looked at her, clearly responding.

'He knows it!' Alessia exclaimed. 'Dominic knows it.'

'Yes, darling,' Popsy said patiently. 'We can see he does. Can we drive on now?'

'You don't understand,' Alessia said breathlessly. 'That's out of Il Trovatore . The Soldiers' Chorus.'

My gaze sharpened on her face. 'Do you mean…' I began.

She nodded. 'I heard it five times a day for six weeks.'

'What are you talking about?' Miranda asked. 'Dominic doesn't know any opera. Neither John nor I like it. Dominic only knows nursery rhymes. He picks those up like lightning. I play them to him on cassettes.'

'Holy hell,' I said in awe. 'Popsy, drive home. All is fine.'

With good humour Popsy restarted the car and took us back to the house, and once there I went over to my car to fetch my briefcase and carry it into the kitchen.

'Miranda,' I said, 'I'd like Dominic to look at a picture.

She was apprehensive but didn't object. She sat at the kitchen table with Dominic on her lap, and I took out one of the photostats of Giuseppe and laid it face up on the table. Miranda watched Dominic anxiously for a frightened reaction, but none came. Dominic looked at the face calmly for a while and then turned away and leaned against Miranda, his face to her neck.

With a small sigh I put the picture back in the case and accepted Popsy's offer of a universal cup of tea.

'Ciao, bambino,' Dominic said.

My head and Alessia's snapped round as if jerked by strings.

'What did you say?' Alessia asked him, and Dominic snuggled his face deeper into Miranda's neck.

'He said "Ciao, bambino" ' I said.

'Yes… that's what I thought.'

'Does he know any Italian?' I asked Miranda.

'Of course not.'

'Goodbye, baby,' Popsy said. 'Isn't that what he said?'

I took the picture of Giuseppe out of the case again and laid it on the table.

'Dominic, dear little one,' I said, 'what was the man called?'

The great eyes swivelled my way, but he said nothing.

Was his name… Michael?' I asked.

Dominic shook his head: a fraction only, but a definite negative.

'Was his name David?'

Dominic shook his head.

'Was his name Giuseppe?'

Dominic's eyes didn't waver. He shook his head.

I thought a bit. 'Was his name Peter?'

Dominic did nothing except look at me.

'Was his name Dominic?' I said.

Dominic almost smiled. He shook his head.

'Was his name John?'

He shook his head.

'Was his name Peter?'

Dominic was still for a long time; then, slowly, very slightly, he nodded.

'Who's Peter?' Alessia asked.

'The man who took him for a ride in a boat.'

Dominic stretched out a hand and briefly touched the pictured face with one finger before drawing back.

'Ciao, bambino,' he said again, and tucked his head against his mother.