The Silent Wife(87)

I swung my legs out of the bed. ‘Don’t give me that “You’d be nowhere without me”. It’s a miracle I’ve survived at all. Sorry if I’m not suitably grateful that the fascinating, oh so generous Massimo chose ordinary old me. But do you know what? I don’t actually feel very grateful right now. I know what you did. It’s taken me some time to work it out, but even “a thick cow” like me got there in the end. And now you’ve had your fun, I’m going to have mine. When I get up tomorrow morning I’m going to take your mother for a coffee. Sit her down with a nice little latte and explain to her how her precious firstborn was having an affair with her youngest son’s wife.’

I grounded my feet. I rubbed my lips together and swallowed, preparing to produce a scream to shatter the stained glass in the chapel below if he so much as jabbed a finger in my direction. The noise of my heart seemed to be in my ears. Energy was surging into my fingertips, all the tiny bones in my feet contracting ready for action.

He stood opposite me, chest out, fists flexing. I glanced at the door. I’d never make it. And I almost didn’t care. I was suspended in that split second between release and pain, as though a boil had been lanced and relief blocked out the stinging agony that would follow. I stared at him, throwing down the challenge, trying to dam the fear already filling the void where all those feelings I’d buried had resided. I wanted to cover my head, protect my face, from those hands.

Those tender, gentle, vicious hands.

Then Massimo buckled to the floor, tears leaching down his face, dark curls clinging to his hairline in damp tendrils.

‘I’m so sorry.’





35





LARA




I felt as though I’d been asleep for about thirty seconds when I woke up to find Sandro standing over me, hissing ‘Mum’ and shooting frightened glances at Massimo. I hauled myself out of bed, looking at the back of Massimo’s head on the pillow, the sheet obscuring his face. Would this really be the last time that I woke up next to him? All that life before, snapped off on its stalk, one random day?

I didn’t have to ask what Sandro’s problem was. I knew from the look on his face. Shame. Humiliation. ‘I’ll come and help you. Let me just put some clothes on.’ I crept out, leaving the door ajar, my eyes watering as the early morning sunlight bounced up off the cobbles.

I wrinkled my nose as I walked into his room and started stripping the bed. ‘Don’t worry. There’s a laundry by the kitchen. I’ll pop these in now and no one will know.’

‘Don’t tell Daddy, will you? Or Sam and Francesca? They already think I’m a baby.’

‘Come here.’ I hugged him to me, closing my gritty eyes and resting my face on his head. ‘You’ll grow out of it. It’s just taking a bit longer for you. We all do things at different times – some children walk and talk long after everyone else, some stop wetting the bed late – we all get there in the end. But I wouldn’t swap you for anyone in the world.’

‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’ I said, balling up the sheets.

‘Why were you swearing at Daddy last night?’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, my mind recoiling from the idea that Sandro had heard any of that conversation.

‘I wet the bed before you’d gone to sleep but then I heard you arguing, so I didn’t come in.’

‘Have you been sleeping in a wet bed all night?’

Sandro shrugged. ‘I put a towel over it.’

‘Were you crying?’

‘Not really.’ His stoicism – or low expectations of life – would have finished me off if I’d had any more despair left to squeeze out.

He sat on the bed, his feet dangling over the edge. ‘Was it my fault you were shouting at Daddy? Because he tried to help me swim yesterday morning?’

I felt my heart leap. Sandro was already doing what I did. Re-writing history, because facing up to the truth was too brutal.

I knelt down beside him. ‘What Daddy did was horrible. He wasn’t really trying to help you, he was trying to force you to do something you weren’t ready to do. But that wasn’t why I was shouting.’

I hadn’t rehearsed this. I hadn’t even spelt it out to Massimo that I was leaving him yet, let alone worked out how to have the ‘Mummy’s not going to live with Daddy’ conversation. My thoughts were bumping about like moths in the light, blundering into so many things that would have to happen before I could consider having that talk. Number one priority would be taking Sandro’s passport out of the flight bag. Number two would be coming up with a plan for what I could do with less than twenty pounds to my name. But I – we – couldn’t stay.