The Silent Wife(95)

I surprised myself. ‘I don’t know whether I can forgive you.’

Massimo leaned back in his chair. ‘I was so lonely. I missed you so much. It’s not an excuse, but you’d cut yourself off from me. I know you don’t believe me, but Caitlin and I didn’t have sex. Yes, we held each other and comforted each other, but it wasn’t physical. I needed someone to talk to, she needed someone to talk to, and we found each other.’ He paused. ‘Do you think Maggie will tell Nico?’ His brow furrowed as he computed the probabilities and possibilities of disaster.

My desire to let him stew was outweighed by my respect for Maggie, bearing the burden of the knowledge, of Francesca’s outrage, of the injustice of their finger-pointing, without wavering. ‘I’m sure she won’t, and even if she did, she doesn’t know it was you Caitlin was having an affair with. If she was going to say something, she’d have done it by now. Even though they’re both blaming her for throwing away Caitlin’s stuff, Maggie’s so decent she’s still protecting them from what Caitlin did.’ I let the ‘And you’ hang silently, a cloud of accusation as dense as a mountain fog.

We got up to leave. Massimo paused outside the restaurant. ‘I’ve behaved terribly, let you down. I’ll make it up to you for the rest of my life. But don’t destroy my family.’

I caught a glimpse of my expression reflected in the shop window next door: serious and determined rather than meek and passive. The woman I used to be.

I hoped I could hold onto her.





39





MAGGIE




Since we’d come back from Italy, Lara was like a woman possessed. I no longer had to chase her to come out driving, wondering whether she wanted to learn or whether she was doing it as a favour to me, too polite to say no. We’d fallen into a routine of driving to visit her dad two or three times a week. I’d pop in for a few minutes, he’d shake my hand and introduce himself, so solemnly and delightfully – ‘I’m Robert Dalton. But Margaret, you may call me Bob.’

‘And you, Bob, may call me Maggie.’

Once, just to make conversation, I made the mistake of telling him I was teaching Lara to drive.

He stood up, shaking his head. ‘No. No driving. No cars,’ becoming more and more agitated, slapping at me with his newspaper until the nurse had to come and settle him down.

Lara was very kind about it. ‘Maggie, at least you come and talk to him. That’s more than can be said for anyone else in the family.’

He didn’t seem to hold it against me though and still greeted me the next time with a handshake and gorgeous old-fashioned gentlemanly introduction. I liked to let Lara have a bit of privacy with him, so usually I’d slip off to do some sewing in the lounge. Her dad would wave me off cheerily, saying, ‘Who was that?’ to Lara. She often tried to jog his memory with photos – sometimes I’d glance back at them, crouched over pictures of Lara as a child with her mother, Shirley. I’d see his old face soften as he peered into the photo and wonder what fog was parting in the memories in his mind. He’d start looking round: ‘When’s Shirley coming?’

And I’d see Lara’s face tighten, her expression caught between a forced smile and suppressed pain. She’d try and distract him with photos of Sandro. ‘Look, he likes building things, clever with his hands like you.’

And then sometimes I’d see him stab at a photo. ‘Him. I hate him.’

Lara would look puzzled. ‘That’s Massimo, Dad. My husband. He’s a good man.’ And then she’d get caught in explaining that yes, she had got married. Yes, he had been invited to the wedding.

Poor Massimo. Robert was so gentle in so many ways, it was weird that he had a downer on the one bloke who coughed up for him to live in a decent nursing home where he stood half a chance of getting his own pants back from the laundry.

As we walked out to the car, Lara always turned to wave at her dad as he stood watching her leave through the big bay window in the residents’ lounge. She gave him a big grin, waving furiously as he pressed his hands against the glass. Then always crumpled into little sobs as we reached the car.

‘I feel so guilty leaving him. I can’t wait to pass my test so I can come whenever I want.’ She paused. ‘Not that you haven’t been really generous bringing me here. I’ve been more times in the last few months than in the whole of the previous couple of years.’

‘Why don’t you take him to yours one day so he can see Sandro? Mum would come and help with any nursing stuff. He’s not really infirm, is he? You’d just need to keep a careful eye on him.’