did you hear what I said? I’m going to be a grandmother.’
‘But why make such a tragedy of it? What are you saying? That you’re going to go grey-haired and wrinkled in the next five minutes? Or are you planning to get a walking stick?’
‘Don’t laugh at me.’
‘But it is laughable the way you make a fuss about trifles.’
‘I’m going to be a granny.’
‘So what? You haven’t changed. You’re still you—the same person you were five minutes ago. You haven’t suddenly become eighty just because of this.’
‘I’ve moved up a generation,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Then I’m coming with you,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We’ll buy two walking sticks and hobble along together. Now, come back to bed. The night isn’t over, and Sol’s problem has given me some interesting ideas.’
He tried to draw her down between the sheets again, but she resisted.
‘Will you try to be sensible?’
‘What for? What did being sensible ever do for anyone?’
She loved him in this mood, but this time she couldn’t yield to him. It was too serious.
‘I wish you’d listen,’ she said. As she spoke she fended him off, which made him stop and stare at her, puzzled.
‘I’ve said that you’re still you,’ he said. ‘The woman I love, and will love all my days. None of this makes any difference.’
But she shook her head helplessly.
‘It does.’
‘But why? You haven’t aged by so much as a second.’
‘Haven’t I? I’ve suddenly seen myself aging.’
‘Because of a word? Because that’s all “grandmother” is—a word.’ He tried again to take her into his arms. ‘Cara, don’t give in to fancies. None of this matters to us.’
He didn’t understand, she realised. His words were logical, but they had no effect on the chill of fear in her heart.
‘No, it’s more than a word.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a thought with a picture attached. You saw that picture yourself—grey-haired, wrinkled, walking stick. And it’s made me face up to something that in my heart I’ve always known.’
She took his face between her hands, trying to find the courage for what had to come next.
‘I fooled myself that it could work between us,’ she said at last. ‘What we have is lovely, and I didn’t want to spoil it. I still don’t. We can have everything we want—except marriage.’
He frowned, and the light died from his eyes.
‘What kind of everything do you have in mind?’
‘It’ll take months to make the programme, and we can have that time together. Afterwards—we’ll see what happens.’
There was a silence before he said, in a strange voice she’d never heard before, ‘Afterwards you think I’ll act like a spoilt brat who’s had his fun, dumps the woman, and goes onto the next thing? That’s your opinion of me? Do you even realise that you’ve insulted me?’
‘I don’t intend to insult you. I just think we should take life as it comes and not make too many demands on the future.’
He pulled away from her and got to his feet.
‘No,’ he said harshly. ‘What you think is that I’m not sufficiently adult to make a commitment. That’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Behind all this “too old” talk, what you’re really saying is that I’m too young—not up to standard? Why can’t you be honest about it, Della?’
‘Because that’s not what I mean,’ she cried passionately.
‘Isn’t it? Della, I’m thirty-one, not twenty-one. A man of thirty-one is usually reckoned mature enough to make his own decisions, and you’d see that too if you didn’t have this fixation about being older. I may look like a kid to you, but nobody else would say so.’
‘A man of thirty-one is still young, but I’m on the verge of middle age,’ she said fiercely. ‘You may not want to face it, but I have to.’
‘That’s a damned fool argument and you know it. Perhaps it’s just a cover for something uglier?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I think you decided you needed me just so long and no longer.’
Both his eyes and his voice were cold.
‘Have you been stringing me along? Making a fool of me just to get material for your programme?’ he demanded.
‘That’s nonsense. If all I wanted was research, I’ve got people to do it for me.’
‘But not as we’ve done. Living it. Feeling it. And why not have a nice little vacation at the same time? He looks promising, so let’s pick him up and try him out. If he succeeds as a toy-boy he may even succeed as a presenter—’
‘Don’t you dare say such a thing,’ she flashed. ‘There was nothing even remotely like that in my mind.’
‘From where I’m standing, that’s what it looks like.’
‘I never thought of you as a toy-boy—’
‘You thought of me as someone to be used—someone you could treat as a kid. I should have learned my lesson that first day, when you didn’t tell me the truth about why you were in Naples. I thought I’d met the woman of my dreams, and all the time you were sizing me up, assessing whether I fitted the slot. I had my warning, but like an idiot I ignored it because—well, never mind.’
He turned and moved away from her, as though he needed to put space between them.
‘You were going to keep me around for just so long, then end it when it suited you,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘It was nothing but a game to you.’
‘I thought it was only a game to you,’ she said wretchedly. ‘It ought to have been.’
‘“Ought to have been”?’ he echoed, aghast. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘In the beginning—’ She stopped, for emotion was making it hard for her to speak.
‘Yes?’ he said remorselessly.
‘At the start I thought it was just a fling, for both of us. It had to be for me, and honestly I thought you were just passing the time. Carlo, be honest. Women have come and gone in your life, haven’t they?’
‘Yes,’ he said bleakly. ‘Too many. But none of them meant anything
