Federica’s heart yearned for Polperro. She needed it more than ever, but she was barely able to admit it, even to herself.
‘I am happy,’ she insisted.
Then we’re happy you’re happy. If you missed home all the time that would surely mean there was something wrong with your marriage.’
There’s nothing wrong with that, I can assure you. He’s so wonderful; I wake up every day hardly able to believe that I am so blessed to be married to someone so gorgeous. I don’t deserve him.’ Federica laughed.
‘Yes you do, sweetheart.’
‘I don’t. He does everything for me. I don’t have a care in the world. Mrs Hughes looks after the house, in fact she gets cross if I so much as move a photo frame. She’s a little too territorial, but then I suppose she’s looked after him for so long it’s hardly surprising. She knows what he likes better than I do.’
‘I doubt that. She’s not married to him.’
That’s not what she thinks!’ she joked. ‘But I shouldn’t complain. I live in the most beautiful house. Most men don’t buy their wives expensive clothes and jewellery. Torquil indulges my every desire, I’m in great danger of turning into a spoilt princess.’
‘Fede, nothing could ever turn you into that. You’re a sweet girl and he’s
bloody lucky to have you. It all sounds so perfect!’
‘It is. I do miss you all though,’ she said softly and Toby noticed the strain in her voice, as if she were suppressing a cry for help. ‘I miss Polperro and the sea, walks along the stormy cliffs with Rasta. Oh, I miss Rasta too, how is he?’ she asked, attempting to sound cheerful.
‘Missing you. We cuddle him a lot to compensate but he still looks at me with those big sad eyes inquiring where you are.’
‘Don’t, you’ll make me miserable,’ she wailed. ‘Torquil won’t let me have a dog in London because he doesn’t want dog hair all over the house. Seeing as he’s barely here I’m surprised he’d notice. But he’s very proud of his house. He’s meticulous about everything.’
‘I noticed that. He dresses like a duke,’ Toby said enthusiastically but he felt a tingling sensation of discomfort creep up his neck.
‘Don’t talk to me about his clothes.’ She sighed melodramatically. ‘He gets enraged if Mrs Hughes leaves creases in his shirts or presses his trousers incorrectly. Thank God he doesn’t lose his temper like that with his wife. Well, he does when he’s jealous but Lucia tells me that’s his way of showing me that he loves me, imagine if he wasn’t jealous at all, I’d feel very neglected.’
‘Don’t you cook any more?’ Toby asked, remembering how much pleasure she took from looking after him and Julian during the years they all lived together.
‘No, I haven’t cooked since I got married. Mrs Hughes cooks or we go out. You see, I’m very spoilt.’
Toby didn’t dare ask whether she still put flowers in vases, scented the sheets with lavender and filled the house with music because he knew the answer and he couldn’t bear to hear it.
‘As long as he makes you happy,’ he conceded finally. But when he put the telephone down he was besieged by new anxieties, unable to reconcile the Torquil they met before the wedding with the Torquil Federica had just described. Something didn’t gel.
But Federica was happy - or at least she believed herself to be happy. She loved her husband to distraction and modified her tastes and her desires to suit him without even realizing it. Torquil denied her nothing but her freedom, which, during the occasional moments when his possessiveness threatened to suffocate her, she justified as an expression of his devotion and forgave him.
She rarely questioned his motives or his actions. He was her husband, she had chosen him, so she worked through any feelings of frustration because she didn’t know any other way. She was determined to make the marriage work. Above all she needed him. He gave her security and love and she willingly sacrificed her freedom for that. Unable to make the house into a real home, for Mrs Hughes saw to all the domestic needs, Federica began to eat away her boredom. A biscuit here, and piece of cake there, until she was rarely without something in her fingers, making regular trips up to her mouth. Lucia, who believed it impossible to be too rich or too thin, delighted in the swell of her rival’s figure and encouraged her with cunning. Torquil, who loathed fat women, watched his wife’s changing body with delight; it reflected the gradual surrendering of her independence. Unable to understand it as an outward expression of her inner discontent he felt empowered by it. The ivory goddess was toppling from her pedestal. As her confidence was subtly undermined she grew more needy. Torquil relished his control. She belonged to him. Without intending to be malicious he began to call her ‘my Venus’ and ‘Voluptuosa’ while at the same time encouraging her to eat. ‘You’re not fat, sweetness, you’re sensual and I love you like that,’ he would say. She believed him because he