The Silent Wife(110)
‘What do you know about me, Maggie? What do you know about anything? Except how to gold-dig?’
Nico sent out a growl of anger to my left. I put out my hand to stop him moving towards Massimo. Of course I registered that blow, the slice into a wound that was always ready to split open. But I wasn’t the one who was going to feel bad. Oh no. Not at all. I could almost hear my inner steel oiling itself up for action.
The Beryl in me came out. ‘Here’s what I know. I don’t go through life getting what I want by hurting people. I also know it doesn’t matter what I say, how much I love Nico, your shrivelled little heart won’t ever be able to believe I’m with him for anything other than money because people like you don’t understand working together, looking out for each other. They only understand getting their own way.’ To my credit, I did pause for a second’s consideration before I let my killer point out into the world. ‘You might be right that I’m a bit thick. It’s taken me all this time to realise what you’re really like. But I met someone today who put me in the picture. And I didn’t want to believe her. I was hoping she just had an axe to grind, that her story wasn’t the truth.’
Massimo’s eyes pinged up like a cartoon dog’s. He was having to work harder at that sneer.
‘Yes, I bumped into Dawn today. You do know that your “other” son is a swimming champion? That the boy you abandoned because he was “defective”, as you put it, came first in the swimming championships Francesca has just been to?’
Nico put his hand on his hips. ‘What other son?’
The relief that only Massimo knew about Ben gave my anger a sharper edge. ‘Tell him, Massimo. Tell him how Dawn had to run away because she was afraid you would make her abort your own son because he had a heart problem.’
Nico was shaking his head, disbelief flooding his face. ‘What? I thought you said she didn’t want children.’
Massimo looked at the floor. Just for a second, I felt a sliver of sympathy for him. He’d behaved like an absolute arse but I couldn’t bring myself to believe he’d done it without a lot of heartache.
But that little pause was just to allow Massimo time to reload. When he looked up again, he’d narrowed his eyes as though he was flicking through a mental armoury of weapons he could use to wound me. ‘Don’t come that holier than thou shit, Maggie. At least I’m not a thief.’
I wasn’t quite sure how being a thief was worse than intimidating your wife so much that she had to flee and hide to save her baby. But today didn’t seem to be about rational arguments. He’d picked the wrong insult to throw at me.
‘I’m not a thief. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life. I couldn’t give a shit about money. Nico is always wanting to buy me this, that and the other, but I’ve seen what trying to keep up with everyone else does to people and believe me, I am happy as I am.’
‘What about the gold box you “lost”?’
I felt a rush of betrayal that Lara had told him. ‘I had to get rid of it. And you know why.’ I glanced at Nico, wishing I could save him from the truth.
‘Why? Come on, we’re all family here. Do share with us why you felt you had to take a box worth hundreds of pounds.’
‘How would you know how much it was worth?’
‘Francesca told me that you’d stolen a real gold box.’
I should have known Lara wouldn’t give Massimo any ammunition against me. ‘Fuck off, Massimo. You know how much it was worth because you’re the one who bought it for Caitlin.’
Nico looked as though he was standing in a room where everyone was fluent in a language he’d only just started to learn. I wanted to pause, to bring him up to speed, anything to stop him seeing the world as a place where the people he loved the most lied and kept secrets from him.
‘What proof have you got that I gave it to her?’
I couldn’t quite believe he’d admitted shagging his brother’s wife but wanted to split hairs over whether or not he’d given Caitlin a present.
‘Because of the inscription. That was you, wasn’t it? Why “P” though?’
A slight raising of the eyebrows that I’d discovered the inscription. He waited until he had our full attention. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of us hanging onto his every word, but he was mesmerising, a gypsy-haired villain deciding whether or not to put us out of our misery.
Finally he laughed. And started humming. The music from Pelléas and Mélisande. That’s where I’d recognised it from. No run-of-the-mill bloke next door affair for Massimo. He’d cast himself in the role of the tragic sibling, in love with his brother’s wife. In his warped mind, he was Pelléas – P. He must have been laughing his head off at my naïve questions when we were watching the opera in San Gimignano.