‘So who is the little boy who follows her around?’
‘My son, Alessandro,’ Rosa replied.
‘The one with the feather who cried for help?’ Luca asked, relieved that he wasn’t losing his mind after all.
Rosa looked confused. ‘No. My son was with me all the time tonight. I didn’t see anyone cry for help.’
‘For God’s sake, he shouted so loudly they must have heard him in Naples.’
Rosa flinched at his raised voice. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said sheepishly.
‘Don’t worry, I’m obviously the only person who saw him. I’m going mad, that’s all.’
‘Well, thank you. On behalf of all my family, thank you for saving her life.’
Once again they all squeezed into the little car and set off for the palazzo. Ma and Caradoc were thrilled with Luca’s heroism. The evening would have been an anticlimax had Cosima not chosen to throw herself into the sea. The drama had given them both a new lease of life and they couldn’t wait to get back to tell the others. But while they chatted, Luca’s mind was elsewhere. Was he losing his mind? Or was it something altogether darker?
Back at the palazzo, Luca helped Caradoc and Ma out of the car. ‘Who’d have thought you’d turn out to be a knight in shining armour? There are precious few heroes these days, Luca, but you deserve a medal for what you did tonight. I’m going to tell your mother myself.’ Ma patted his shoulder. ‘You’d better go and change before you catch a cold.’
‘See the conquering hero comes! Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!’ sang the professor as Luca handed him his walking stick. Ma gave him her arm, waited a moment while he shook out his legs, then led him through the great doors of the palazzo. Luca fled upstairs to his room.
He stood under the shower enjoying the warm water as it pounded his skin and trying to block out his fears. Trying not to think about his childhood and the voices that had spoken to him in the night, the people he had seen, wandering about his room in the dark. His mother had told him ghosts didn’t exist and that if he continued to talk about them she’d send him to a hospital for mentally ill children. After that, he hadn’t mentioned them again. He had believed it was all in his head. He had shut them out until finally they had gone. If he was the only one to see the boy, did that mean they were coming back?
He dressed in a daze. How was it possible to feel the fear of a child when he was a man in his forties? He walked out on to his balcony and gazed across the ocean. Beneath the moon the water shone silver like mercury. He thought of Cosima and her little boy and his fear turned to compassion. Her pain was so great she had tried to end it all. She wouldn’t thank him for saving her life. She had wanted to be with her son. But if the little boy was indeed her son, he too had wanted to save her. Luca knew he couldn’t tell her what he had seen; she’d think him crazy. Everyone would think him crazy. He couldn’t tell anyone.
He heard laughter down below where his mother presided over dinner on the terrace. Caradoc and Ma were obviously telling the story. The table listened, enraptured, their features illuminated by the flickering light of the hurricane lamps. He hoped they wouldn’t mention the little boy. He’d shrug it off, make something up. He had shut them out once before, he was damned if they were going to come back.
His stomach rumbled with hunger and he was in dire need of a stiff drink. He would have preferred to eat on his own, but the palazzo didn’t offer room service. Reluctantly he went downstairs. When he appeared on the terrace the table cheered and raised their glasses.
‘Darling, I’m so proud of you!’ his mother gushed, tears in her eyes.
‘Have a glass of Taurasi,’ his father said, reaching for the bottle.
‘You look better now,’ said Ma, turning to the rest of the table. ‘He looked very pale. I thought he was going to faint. He was the only one in that entire church who rushed to her aid.’
‘Who is she?’ Bill asked.
‘Is she pretty?’ asked Dizzy.
Ma rolled her eyes. ‘She’s tragic and beautiful. If she’d been ugly he wouldn’t have bothered.’ Everyone laughed, except Luca.
‘She’s called Cosima,’ he said, feeling a warm sensation as the wine reached his belly. ‘Her son drowned in the sea three years ago. She was trying to commit suicide.’
Dizzy gasped. ‘Oh, my God! I can’t understand why anyone could do such a thing!’
‘To be saved by a handsome stranger, of course,’ said Ma sarcastically.
‘I think you should pay the family a visit, Luca,’ said Caradoc, thinking of the pretty cousin in the red dress.