Last Voyage of the Valentina(19)

“I don’t know whether it’s a good thing to be that sort of man,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve had two marriages and I’m only forty. I once had a fortune but it’s all gone to the women I lost my heart to. I still feel guilty about breaking their hearts and ruining their lives.”

“You’re too good,” she said truthfully. “I don’t have a conscience.”

“You don’t look like you could hurt anyone.”

“Oh Fitz!”

“Well, your smile would heal any hurt inflicted, I’m sure.”

She laughed throatily and lit a cigarette. “Are you terribly romantic? Is that your problem?” She sat down at the table, brushing aside small bottles of nail varnish. Fitz followed suit.

“I’m hopelessly romantic, Alba. When I lose my heart there’s no getting it back. I believe in love and marriage. I’m just not very good at either.”

“I certainly don’t believe in marriage. I’d be very bad at it, and love, well, there are lots of different kinds of love, aren’t there?”

Fitz sipped his wine and felt better. “Have you ever been in love, Alba? Really in love. Blown away?”

She considered his question, cocking her head to one side and glancing sidelong from beneath thick black lashes. “No.” She spoke confidently. “No, I don’t think I have.”

“Well, you’re young.”

“Twenty-six. Viv tells me I should get on with it if I want to have children.”

“Do you want children?”

She screwed up her nose. “I don’t know. Not yet. I don’t much like children on the whole. They’re sweet and all that, but they’re demanding and tiring. Nice to look at but only for a minute or so.” She laughed again and Fitz laughed with her. Her nonchalance was alluring. She was incredibly at ease with herself. He envied her effortlessness. It must be so easy being Alba, he thought.

“You’ll feel differently about them when they’re your own,” he said, repeating what he had heard other people say.

“Oh, I do hope so. I’d like to be good mother.” Her voice trailed off and she lowered her eyes, looking forlornly into her glass. “I think my mother would have been a good example.” She raised her eyes and smiled sadly. “But I’ll never know.”

“You will know,” Fitz said emphatically, reaching out and holding her hand. “Because we’re going to find out about her.”

“Do you really think we will?”

“When we’ve finished we’ll know her very well, darling.”

“Oh, Fitz. I hope you’re right. I’ve longed to know her all my life.”

She did not withdraw her hand but gazed at him longingly. “I trust you, Fitz. I know you won’t disappoint me.”

And Fitz prayed silently to whoever was listening, that he wouldn’t.





5




E arly Saturday morning Fitz picked up Alba in his Volvo with Sprout lying contentedly in the back, watching seagulls through the glass. He had to wait downstairs while she dressed. He could hear her above him, wandering back and forth while she deliberated what outfit to wear. He had noticed her clothes. They were carefully chosen and highly fashionable. He didn’t know why she bothered. She’d look just as enticing in an old sack.

He peered through one of the windows in the sitting room to where Viv’s boat lay quiet and still. He could imagine her typing away in a long flowing gown, cigarette smoking in one of those lime green dishes. He reflected too on how often he had sat on her deck trying to look into Alba’s boat, hoping to catch a glimpse of her, a hint of her, anything. He remembered Viv’s warning. “Don’t fall in love, Fitzroy,” she had said. Too late, he thought with a sigh.

He hadn’t been disappointed the night they had dined together. He had fully expected to leave afterward and drive home. At least he didn’t get drunk and lose his car. They had talked until long after midnight, their stomachs full of the risotto he had cooked; Alba wasn’t capable of rustling anything up, in spite of her enthusiasm. She had told him about her childhood, her horrid stepmother, and the sense of isolation she had suffered all her life.

He had tried to explain that it was natural for her father to try to move on after the loss of his first wife. The tragedy of her death must have nearly broken him. Then to be left with a small baby. It would have been impossible for him to bring her up on his own. He had needed Margo. Alba was simply an innocent casualty in the wake of his determination to build a new life and to forget the past. “I’m looking at it from a man’s point of view,” he had explained. “It doesn’t mean that he loves you less, just that he doesn’t want to be dragged back into the past and probably wants to protect you from it too.” Alba had gone very quiet.