to England, the ecstatic meeting, and that last evening together—
‘You’re a dream of perfection, and I love you madly—te voja ben—te voja ben—’
‘Te voja ben,’ she whispered longingly.
There was his face as he said it, but it was fading, fading—
‘Gino!’
She screamed again and again, stretching out her arms in a frantic attempt to hold on to him.
‘Come back,’ she cried. ‘Come back. Don’t leave me.’
But then she touched him. She couldn’t see him but she could feel that he’d turned back to her, was taking her in his arms, drawing her against his body.
‘Where did you go?’ she sobbed. ‘I was so scared—I longed for you—where were you?’
Strong arms tightened about her, and she heard the soothing words murmured in her ear.
‘It’s all right, don’t panic. I’m here.’
‘Don’t leave me again.’
‘I won’t leave you as long as you need me.’
‘Where have you been?’ she whispered. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
She reached for his face and kissed it again and again in her passionate relief, his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth. To her surprise he didn’t kiss her back, but at least he was there.
‘Te voja ben,’ she whispered. ‘Te voja ben.’
‘Lie back,’ he said, gently pushing her down against the pillow. ‘You’re safe now.’
She could still feel his hands clasping hers, and their strength calmed her. Her terror began to fade. After so long among nightmares and mystery, Gino had finally returned, his arms open to her.
‘Sleep now,’ he whispered. ‘And in the morning everything will be all right.’
But something perverse in her, something awkward that months of misfortune hadn’t managed to stifle, made her open her eyes.
A man was sitting on her bed, holding her hands. Even in the semi-darkness she could tell that it wasn’t Gino.
CHAPTER TWO
PIETRO was in pyjamas and his hair was tousled. He switched on the small bedside light and watched as the joy died out of her eyes.
‘I heard you calling,’ he said. ‘You sounded desperate.’
‘I had such dreams,’ she whispered. ‘Gino—’
He wondered if she knew that she’d kissed him, thinking he was Gino, and cried out; ‘Te voja ben,’ the Venetian for ‘I love you.’ With all his soul he hoped not.
‘Talk to me about Gino,’ he said.
‘Our last evening together—I have that dream so often, but then it fades—he vanishes, but I don’t know where—and it’s too late to find out because it was so long ago. I’m sorry if I awoke you. I promise to be quiet now.’
‘You can’t help a dream.’
She suddenly put her hands together over her chest, but there was nothing seductive about her appearance. Like him, she was in pyjamas. They were sedate and functional, buttoning high in the front.
‘I didn’t mean to stare at you,’ he assured her.
‘Don’t worry,’ she said simply. ‘I’m used to it.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I warned you last night that I was a bit mad.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ he said quickly.
‘Why not? It’s true—well, a little bit. For the last year I’ve been officially diagnosed as “disturbed”. I’m a lot better than I was, but I’m not all the way there yet.’
‘But what happened? Can you tell me?’
‘Gino came to England. We went out to dinner and—’ She stopped, smiling. ‘We talked about how I was going back to Venice with him, to meet his family, and discuss the wedding. It was the most marvellous night of my life, until—until—’
‘Don’t force yourself if it’s too painful.’
‘I have to, or I’ll never escape.’
‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘Tell me what happened.’
At last Ruth began to speak.
‘When we’d finished eating we went out to the car park, and found some lads there, trying to break into the car. They attacked us. I was knocked out, and woke up in the hospital. My mind was a blank. I didn’t know what had happened, or who I was. I didn’t even recognise Gino. I only knew there was a young man sitting beside the bed, but to me he was a stranger. Everything in my mind was blank, including myself.
‘But seeing him again afterwards, didn’t that help you to remember?’
‘I don’t remembering him coming back—but he may have done. I kept blacking out. When I awoke properly it was some time later and he wasn’t there. I never saw him again. Perhaps he couldn’t bear my not recognising him any longer. I can’t blame him for leaving.’
Pietro was getting a very bad feeling about this. Gino’s story that he’d been jilted had always sounded unlikely. In truth, he seemed to have deserted her when she most needed him.
‘And you had nobody to help you? No family? Nothing?’
‘After my parents died I was raised by my mother’s sister, who didn’t really want me. She died while I was away at college. Then I discovered that she’d known for months that she was dying, but never told me. It was like the final slamming of a door.
‘So there was nobody who’d known me in the past. I had blinding headaches. There was a lot of pressure on my brain because I’d been beaten so badly about the head. They had to operate to relieve it. I was better after that.’
‘But—alone,’ he murmured, stunned by the horror of it.
She gave a little wry smile.
‘I looked awful. I was rather glad there was nobody to see me.’
Pietro was speechless. Perhaps, he thought, it was a good thing Gino wasn’t present right now. He might have said or done something he would later regret.
‘All my hair was shaved off,’ she recalled. ‘I looked like a malignant elf.’
Something in her self-mocking tone inspired him to say absurdly, ‘Why malignant? I always thought elves were nice.’
‘Not
