The Italian Matchmaker(10)

Luca stood up. ‘Let’s go into the drawing-room.’

‘Good idea,’ said Freya, following him out.

‘That’s the behaviour of a man with something to hide,’ said Miles.

Once in the hall Freya grabbed his arm. ‘What was that all about, Luca?’

‘I just don’t want him inventing things about me.’

‘He wasn’t inventing. He was telling the truth. He couldn’t have known any of those things. What about my grandmother’s nickname for me? How do you explain that?’

‘I can’t.’

‘I understand you not wanting to let him read your watch. It’s not a game. You never know what he might reveal. But you needn’t have put him down.’

‘He has a wife to defend him.’

Freya frowned. ‘You’ve gone all funny, Luca. What’s the matter?’

He stared down at her for a moment, as if about to divulge a terrible secret. His eyes were glassy, his mouth twisted at one corner. He looked afraid. But Annabel and Miles stepped out into the hall, interrupting them with their cheerful banter.

Luca went to the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. He splashed water on to his face and rubbed his eyes but still he looked terrible. He felt that familiar sensation of falling very fast without anything to hold on to. He dared not close his eyes for fear that the voices would return. That the shadows would once more walk about the room. That he would invite back in all those beings he had struggled to evict. He could hear his mother’s voice telling him to grow up, not to invent imaginary friends. That if he really was hearing voices they were the spirits of Hell trying to persuade him to follow them into the fiery furnace. He recalled the doctor telling him to pull himself together and stop frightening his mother with lies, the teachers telling her he was making it up to get attention. Eventually, he had learned to keep quiet. Little by little he had shut them out and they had been silenced.

That night he did not want to be alone. He lay staring up at the ceiling, the light on the bedside table throwing shadows into the corners of the room. At last he crept down the corridor to where Annabel slept. Her door was ajar as if she were expecting him. She sat up when he entered, her white breasts exposed above the sheet. ‘What took you so long?’ she asked, throwing back the covers invitingly. He untied his pyjama bottoms and let them fall to the ground. Making love to Annabel was the best way to forget his boyhood and make him feel like a man again.

Miles took Sinbad for a walk around the garden before bed. It was drizzling again on to the phosphorescent green buds and daffodils. The dog trotted into the darkness, sniffing the grass and wagging his tail. When he was far enough from the house not to be overheard, Miles pulled out his mobile telephone and pressed redial. ‘Hi,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It’s me.’





3



The following morning Luca returned to London. He had promised Annabel he would call her, but knew he wouldn’t. As for Freya – happily married, beautiful Freya – there was no point chasing angels. He’d had his chance and missed it long ago. He drove up the M3 in his silver Aston Martin ruminating on what might have been. Would he be in the middle of a divorce had he married Freya instead of Claire? Or was he simply not made for the institution of marriage? He considered his daughters, Coco and Juno, then shuddered as he thought of them climbing into bed with John Tresco every morning. He hoped Claire would have the sensitivity not to bring him home until they were married, then the wisdom to resist forced intimacy with a man who was not their father.

John Tresco’s shallow features were more suited to a shop dummy than a man of flesh and blood. Luca didn’t trust men who looked like pretty boys, preening themselves in the mirror and taking too long to dress in the morning. John Tresco was too in love with himself to muster up emotion for anyone else. Arrogant and pompous, he was a know-all and a show-off. Having inherited a fortune, he had never done a day’s work in his life, floating from party to party, shooting weekends in Scotland to weddings in Saint Tropez, mingling with the famous and fatuous. He invested the family money and employed armies of staff whom he spent hours training and seconds firing when they didn’t come up to scratch. At least Luca had made all his money himself.

He had suspected Claire was having an affair long before she was caught out at a hotel in Beaulieu supposedly on a two-day break with her mother. Being so busy he had given it little thought. The spark between the two of them had died a few years after they had had girls. Once the fire of passion had diminished to a mere glow they were left with the two very different people that they were. The girls united them briefly: early mornings and interrupted nights and shared moments watching the little miracles over the side of the cot. Then even the glow died and they existed as acquaintances or house-mates who didn’t laugh with each other any more. He didn’t blame her for finding someone else to love her but she felt guilty and chose to accuse him of driving her into John’s arms. Years of resentment gushed out in a venomous torrent: he hadn’t been there for her; she’d had to raise the girls single-handed; he didn’t listen to her any more; he only talked about himself; he was a shocking father; he didn’t deserve to have children. As deftly as he defended himself, he suspected she was probably right. He was guilty of all those things. They divorced on the grounds of irreconcilable differences. They were yet to work out a financial settlement but she was ensconced in their family house in Kensington, taking the girls to their home in Gloucestershire on alternate weekends and during the holidays. Her monthly maintenance was more than most people required in a year. If she was spoiled, he only had himself to blame.