Visconti's Forgotten Heir(29)

‘Why didn’t you tell me you had suffered a cerebral haemorrhage?’

Magenta looked at him, startled, swallowing to ease the sudden dryness in her throat. ‘You didn’t ask.’

‘I’m asking you now.’

When she didn’t answer at once, he said with mounting impatience, ‘Weren’t we close enough in the past? Did you think it didn’t matter, not bothering to acquaint me with that fact?’

Magenta looked at him askance, wishing he didn’t look quite so amazing. ‘Perhaps I didn’t want you thinking I was inviting any false sympathy from you.’

Incredulity leapt in his eyes, and now she could see how pale his skin looked despite being bathed by the early evening sun.

‘You really put me down as being that indifferent?’ He tossed his jacket down on the seat. ‘And thought that I wouldn’t feel as shocked and rebuffed by your omission as I feel after finding out, as I have now?’

‘Why?’ Why did it matter to him? she thought. ‘Why would it even concern you? Unless you think it’s likely to affect the way I do my job?’

‘Don’t put words in my mouth,’ he advised.

His tone assured her he was in no mood for accusations or evasion tactics. Nevertheless she had to ask, ‘Could I ask who told you?’

‘One of the referees whose name you gave us. It seems he thought you were a remarkably efficient and pleasant-mannered receptionist at his legal practice, but he wondered if, because of the odd bout of things slipping your memory after what you’d suffered, you’d be capable of handling the position of a full-blown PA.’

‘Well, of all the nerve...’ Frustrated tears burned the backs of Magenta’s eyes. ‘The only thing I ever forgot was to jot down his dental appointment! And I misplaced a file once or twice. But everybody does that! And he knew my memory loss was only confined to things that happened for a spell immediately prior to...what happened to me,’ she finished hesitantly, as though she didn’t want to spell it out.

‘So why didn’t you mention it when you were interviewed by my colleagues?’ Andreas enquired. ‘Or at least tell me?’

‘For that very reason,’ Magenta admitted with a grimace. ‘When people find out I’ve had a brain haemorrhage they tend to treat me as though I’m somehow inadequate. Less of a human being. They can’t seem to help it. During the first couple of years after it happened I had to rely on total strangers to help me understand how to use a cash machine, or ask them to walk into the supermarket with me because I didn’t have the confidence to try and find the entrance on my own. Some would help, but others would veer off as fast as they could—like I was an imbecile, or a danger to them or something. It was no use telling them that I’d once been as normal as they considered themselves to be, and that what happened to me could happen to anyone, regardless of age or nationality or intelligence.

‘Some of that discrimination hasn’t ended, even though I’m managing to raise a son, am back to jogging three miles round the block twice a week and have got myself a distinction in Business Studies. I found out that telling prospective employers about what had happened to me wasn’t going to get me the sort of job that would pay the bills. In fact quite the reverse. You’d be surprised how many interviewers who seemed disposed to take me on suddenly turned off as soon as I explained why there was such a gap in my working life. By the time I got an interview with your company I’d already decided I wasn’t going to mention it any more. It was easier just to say I’d taken a break because I was bringing up my son.

‘But, yes, I had a cerebral haemorrhage. And, yes, it affected me drastically. I mean all my physical and some of my mental abilities for a while. But I was determined to recover. Really recover. I’ve been told I’m one of the lucky ones who do. So now you know the truth you can exercise the right I’m sure you must have as an employer and fire me for taking this job under false pretences.’

‘What I’m going to do,’ he said, in a lowered tone that nevertheless revealed how shocked he still was, ‘is sit down here...’

Pushing his jacket aside, his imperious hand was pulling her with him down onto the lovers’ seat.

‘And you’re going to tell me everything. Everything you’ve omitted to tell me since I saw you in that wine bar. That is everything you can remember,’ he appended, when they were sitting together beneath the creamy-pink flowers of the climbing honeysuckle. ‘When did it happen. exactly?’

The colour was returning to the hard bronze of his skin, but he was still looking grim. Magenta wondered if it was anger at being kept in the dark over something so important or genuine concern for her that was responsible for the deepening lines around his eyes and mouth.