they’d caused a near riot in his café.
She took one of those yoga breaths.
‘I cried a lot when my mother died. It made things difficult at school and my sisters sad because there was nothing they could do to make things better.’ This was something she never talked about and the words escaped in a soft rush of breath. ‘I wanted to stop but I didn’t know how.’
‘How old were you?’ He continued to stir the sauce, not looking at her.
‘Eight.’ Two days short of her ninth birthday.
‘Eight?’ He swung round. ‘Madre de Dio...’
‘It was cancer,’ she said before he asked. ‘The aggressive kind, where the diagnosis comes with weeks to live.’
‘Non c’è niente che posso dire,’ he said. And then, in English, ‘There are no words...’
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s nothing anyone can say. No words, not an entire river of tears... Nothing can change what happened.’
‘Is that when you stopped crying?’ he asked. ‘When you realised it made no difference?’
‘I was eight, Dante!’ So much for her self-control...
‘So?’ he prompted, ‘you were too young for philosophy but clearly something happened.’
‘What? Oh, yes... My grandmother found an old black hat in the attic. With a floppy brim,’ she said, describing in with a wavy gesture. ‘Crocheted. Very Sixties. My grandmother was something of a style icon in her day.’
‘And that helped?’ he asked, ignoring the fashion note that was meant to draw a thick black line under the subject.
‘She said that when I was sad I could hide behind the brim.’ She still remembered the moment she’d put it on. The feeling of a great burden being lifted from her shoulders. ‘It showed the world what I was feeling without the red eyes and snot and was a lot easier for everyone to live with. I wore that hat until it fell apart.’
‘And then what did you do?’
‘I found a black cloche in a charity shop. And a black dress. It was too big for me but my grandmother helped me cut it down. Then, when I was twelve, I dyed my hair.’
‘Let me guess. Black.’
‘Actually, it was nearer green but my grandmother took me to the hairdressers’ and had it sorted out and dyed properly.’ The memory of the moment when she’d looked in the mirror and seen herself still made her smile. ‘My sisters were furious.’
‘Because of the colour or because they hadn’t had the same treat?’
‘Because Grandma had blown all the housekeeping money on rescuing me from the nightmare of going to school with green hair. They thought eating was more important.’
‘Hunger has a tendency to shorten the temper,’ he agreed, turning the sauce down to minimum and pouring two glasses of wine from a bottle, dewed with moisture, that stood on the china-laden dresser that took up most of one wall.
‘Where was your father in all this?’ he asked as he handed a glass to her.
‘I don’t have one. None of us do.’
His eyebrows rose a fraction. ‘Unless there’s been a major leap forward in evolution that passed me by,’ he said, leaning back against the dresser, ‘that’s not possible.’
‘Biologically perhaps, but while my mother loved babies, she didn’t want a man underfoot, being moody when his dinner wasn’t ready.’ She turned and, glass in hand, leaned back against the dresser. It was easier being beside him than looking at him. ‘My grandparents’ marriage was not a happy one.’ She took a mouthful of the rich, fruity wine. ‘I imagine the first time she got pregnant it was an accident, but after that, whenever she was broody, she helped herself to a sperm donation from some man she took a fancy to. A travelling fair visits the village every year for the Late Spring Bank Holiday,’ she said. ‘Our fathers were setting up in the next county before the egg divided.’
‘She lived dangerously.’
‘She lived for the moment.’
‘“Take what you want,” says God, “take it and pay for it...”’ He glanced sideways at her. ‘It’s an old Spanish proverb. So? What colour is your hair?’
She picked up a strand, looked at it, then up at him. ‘Black.’
He grinned and it wasn’t just the wine that was warming her.
‘How did you find it?’ he asked. ‘The apartment.’
‘What? Oh...’ Well, that was short-lived... ‘On the internet.’ He didn’t have to say what he thought about that. A muscle tightening at the corner of his mouth wrote an entire essay on the subject. ‘It was an international agency,’ she protested, ‘affiliated to goodness knows how many associations.’ Not that she’d checked on any of them. Who did? ‘There were comments from previous tenants. Some who’d enjoyed their stay in the apartment and couldn’t wait to come back, and a few disgruntled remarks about the heat and the lack of air conditioning. Exactly what you’d expect. Look, I’ll show you,’ she said, clicking the link on her smartphone.
Like the phone line, the web link was no longer available.
Until that moment she hadn’t believed that she’d been conned, had been sure that it was all a mistake, but now the air was sucked right out of her and Dante caught her as her knees buckled, rescued her glass, turned her into his chest.
His arm was around her, her head against his shoulder and the temptation to stay there and allow him to hold her, comfort her, almost overwhelmed her. It felt so right, he was such a perfect fit, but she’d already made a fool of herself once today. She dragged in a deep breath, straightened her shoulders and stepped away.
‘Are you okay?’ he said, his hand still outstretched to steady her.
‘Fine. Really.’
He didn’t look convinced. ‘When did you last have something to eat?’
‘I don’t know. I had a sandwich at the airport when they announced that my flight had been delayed.’
‘Nothing since then?’ He looked horrified. ‘No wonder you’re trembling. Sit down while the pasta cooks.’ He tested it. ‘Another minute or two. It’s nothing fancy—pasta al funghi. Pasta with mushroom sauce,’ he added in case her Italian wasn’t up to it.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sure it’s wonderful but, honestly, I couldn’t eat a thing.’ He didn’t argue but reached for a couple of dishes. ‘The apartment looked so perfect and the rent was so reasonable...’ Stupid, stupid, stupid! ‘I assumed it was because it was the middle of winter, off-season, but it was a trap for the gullible. No, make that the cheap.’ She’d had it hammered into her by Elle that if something looked too good... But she’d been enchanted.
‘Did you give them details of your bank account?’ Dante asked.
