She walked down the street, her eyes fixed on the pavement, wondering how she was going to broach the subject of Christmas. When she got back to the car she saw the chauffeur asleep in his own snot and knocked on the window. He jerked back to life, fumbled for the lock and rolled out of his seat to open the door for her. But Federica had already spotted the letter and had opened
the door herself. She told him to take her home and with a trembling hand she read the name on the envelope, Federica Campione. It was almost certainly from her father, for he wouldn’t know her married name and no one whom she knew would have used Campione. She tore it open and with hungry eyes devoured the words as if they were the word of God. He had been watching her after all.
‘For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride? And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you. And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.’
She felt the colour rise in her cheeks until it throbbed with shame. ‘Stop the car, I need to get out,’ she said suddenly.
‘What, now?’ exclaimed the chauffeur, glancing at her in the mirror.
‘Now,’ she repeated.
‘Yes, Madam,’ he replied in bewilderment. Reluctantly he drew into a quiet
street and pulled up at the kerb. Federica threw open the door and staggered out onto the wet pavement. She walked hastily up the road until she found a small cafe. Dashing inside she took the table in the corner, ordered a cup of tea and stared down at the note in horror. Had she really no pride at all? Was her misery really due to her own weakness and lack of character? Was Torquil, the man she believed she loved, really a tyrant, controlling her every move?
She had wallowed so blindly in misery, feeling sorry for herself, she had never dared believe that her salvation was entirely in her own hands. Obedience had come more naturally to her than rebellion. Now she cringed at her own lack of strength. She was pathetic. She read the lines again and it all suddenly seemed so obvious. Staring into her tea she shone an unforgiving light onto the nature of her marriage. What she saw appalled her. She had allowed Torquil to control every aspect of her life, from the clothes she wore to the people she saw. She recalled with regret how he had cleverly prevented her from going home to Polperro. One by one she remembered each gradual move towards total dictatorship. He hadn’t been satisfied with her love; he had wanted her freedom too. Sam had been right. She wished she had had the courage to take his hand when he had reached out to her. Even Arthur had warned her, but
She finally returned to the house in the late afternoon. Torquil wasn’t home. She opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of grapefruit juice. Then she walked upstairs and ran a bath. Her body trembled with resolution. She was going to spend Christmas in Polperro whether Torquil liked it or not. In fact, she was going to start standing up for herself. She undressed and slipped into a dressing gown, rehearsing what she was going to say to him. It seemed simple, but she feared her throat would seize up when she confronted him face to face.
Then she panicked that he might have organized something else, recalling his threat to whisk her off to Mauritius and she cringed. There’s no reason he would have told her. She had always let him plan everything, she didn’t even keep a diary. She had to be prepared so that he couldn't manipulate her. She ran downstairs to his study and began to open all the drawers in his desk. Everything had its own place, even the pencils were neatly lined up, sharpened to the same length, barely used. Finding nothing in his desk drawers she continued the search in the cupboards but once again she found nothing. No
plane tickets, nothing. She rushed upstairs into his large walk-in wardrobe where polished shoes were displayed in regimental lines, each pair fitted with mahogany shoe-horns.
Suddenly the search ceased to be for a diary but for something else, as if at once she had grown up and was finally able to see the world outside the cocoon her husband had forged for her. Feverishly her hands searched the pockets of his jackets and the pockets of his trousers, all in perfect rows on wooden hangers. Her heart thumped with anxiety for she was aware that he could turn up at any moment. Her curiosity led her to the drawer in his bedside table where her fingers alighted upon a square pocket book. She picked it up and opened it. It was a leather-bound notebook, which contained handwritten lists of things to be done. Stuck onto the front was a Polaroid of a young woman sitting naked on a chair with her legs spread in shameless abandon, smiling with the knowledge of the power of her allure. Federica’s heart froze. She recognised the face and she recognized the occasion. How come it had taken her so long to figure it out?