turned. Her mum’s voice suddenly sounded a lot more healthy. ‘Who’s this?’
‘Oh. Yes. Mum, this is Matteo, my …’ What the hell was he? Other than a giant pain in the backside and a damned fine kisser? And, okay, so he was wearing her down a little with his huge generosity of spirit and the four hours’ of driving on a soggy spring evening through interminable traffic on a motorway that had been as clogged as her mother’s arteries. He was also messing with her head. ‘He’s my colleague at St Carmen’s. He drove me here.’
‘All the way from London? Lucky you.’
‘Yes, well …’ She’d never introduced a man friend to her mother before. ‘He’s just helping me out.’
Ivy shot Matteo a look that she hoped would silence any other kind of response. Because it was late and she was frazzled, her mum was sick and this wasn’t the time or place for explanations. I met his bottom first, the rest came later, and I have no idea what any of it means.
And, truth be told, I’m scared. Right now, of everything. Of you dying. Of him becoming too much to me. Of losing myself in either grief or love.
Of not being able to let go.
The nurse bustled over and fiddled with an IV line attached to a large bag of fluid. ‘Hello, there. Look, I know you’ve come a long way and I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but visiting hours finished a long time ago. I let you sit with her for a while but, really, she needs to get her rest and so do my other patients …’
‘It’s okay, Ivy. You go.’ Her mum’s eyes were already closed, but she squeezed Ivy’s hand. A gesture that was the simplest and yet most profound thing Ivy had received from her mum in a very long time. Tears pricked her eyes.
‘Of course. Yes. Of course. I’m so sorry. I’ll be back tomorrow, Mum.’
‘Good. Bring me some toiletries, will you? A nightgown. Make-up.’
‘Make-up? What for?’
‘Standards, darling.’ Typical Mum. But it did make Ivy smile—she couldn’t be at the far end of danger if she wanted to put on mascara.
‘Let’s go, Ivy.’ Matteo touched her arm and he drew her away from the ward and out into the silent corridor of eternal half-night. That was how hospitals felt to her—places where reality hovered in the background, and time ticked slowly in an ethereal way.
It was good to have him there, despite the strange unbidden feelings he provoked. Emotions washed through her—elation that her mum wasn’t going to die, sadness about the gulf between them, and then, interlaced with all of this, the comfort of being with Matteo. A comfort that pulsed with excitement and sexual attraction. Which seemed really inappropriate and out of place right now. But there it was. Maybe she just needed another human being to metaphorically cling to. There was, after all, a first time for everything.
He waited until they were outside before he spoke. ‘So it’s good news, then? She’s going to be okay?’
A long breath escaped her lungs. ‘Yes, it would seem so. She’s had an MI and angioplasty and the outlook’s good.’
‘So why the sad face?’
She tried to find him a smile, because it was good news. ‘I don’t know … I’m really pleased she’s okay. I just feel terrible for saying those awful things about her, for thinking bad things when she was so sick. She could have died and I’d never have forgiven myself.’
He stopped short and looked at her. ‘Ivy, her only job was to love you. If she didn’t do that then you’re right to be angry at her.’
She got the feeling that he was talking from personal experience, that there was something that had happened to him. That he understood what she felt because he’d felt it too. ‘Matteo, do you have a good relationship with your family? Were things okay when you were growing up?’ It was so not her way to ask direct questions like this—to go deeper than she ever wanted to go herself—but maybe learning how other people coped with things could help.
And she’d quite like to feel she wasn’t the only one around here who’d got issues.
At a time like this, in the dark, late at night, with worry hovering around the edges, maybe it was the best time to talk about these things. The things that really mattered.
He shrugged, sucking in the cool fresh northern air. ‘My mum could only be described as wanting to love us all to death. She’s your typical Italian mother—overfeeding, over-smothering and over-loving us.’
‘And your father?’
He shrugged. Opening the car door, his demeanour changed, his voice took on a forced jolly tone. ‘Now, we need to eat something half-decent that isn’t wrapped in plastic packaging and sold for a fortune in a motorway service station, and you need to get some serious sleep. It has been a long day.’
‘Matteo …’ She wanted him to continue talking about his family. This was the guy who believed in openness and honesty. But only, it seemed, when he felt like it.
‘No, Ivy. It’s too late for talking. Now, show me the way to your house.’
The emotions didn’t wane as she shakily put the key in the lock of her mum’s central York Georgian townhouse. It had been a long time since she’d been here—too long. And that last time they’d argued—but that was nothing new. Ivy couldn’t even remember what it had been about. It didn’t matter, it could have been one of a zillion things, as there’d always been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction between them. But she did remember that she’d left in a storm. And now she was back because her mum had nearly died.
They were immediately greeted by the smell of coffee—that was one thing she had inherited from her mum, a love of decent coffee. Then the warm press of Hugo, the fat ginger cat, who purred as he rubbed himself against her legs, preventing a step forward or backwards.
‘Hey, cat.’ Matteo took a sidestep through the front door, carrying Ivy’s suitcase, a small overnight bag of his own and two large brown paper carriers. He walked through to the kitchen, knowing exactly where to go as if he had homing radar, and plonked them all on the floor. Looking around at the modern granite surfaces and white cupboards in a house that was over two hundred years old, he smiled. ‘Very English. Nice. My mum would be green with envy if she saw this place. She’s been talking about having a new kitchen since I was born.’
It felt strange, having him here in her space—her old space. It wasn’t as if it felt like home any more and yet it was filled with so many familiar things and smells that gave her strange sensations of hurt and loss and loneliness. She’d always envied her friends who’d had happy chaos at home, whereas hers had been all bound up with suffering of one kind or another.
‘So what’s your home like, Matteo?’
‘I guess you’d call it quaint. Old. Small. Traditional. Stone walls, dark wooden cupboards, terracotta tiles, in a village where everyone knows everyone and everyone tries to outdo each other. That’s why I like London, you don’t have to live in each other’s pockets.’ He nodded to the bags. ‘Okay, so I got what I could from the little supermarket next to the hospital after I parked. It wasn’t great, but it had the basics. I have some chicken breasts, pesto sauce and mozzarella cheese. A plastic bag of something
