A Life Sublime (21 page)

Taking a deep breath, Belinda said, “Put the flowers down there. The white will fit in very nicely with the design your father has started.”

She dug into her bag and handed him a set of gardening gloves and a spade. “If we just dig around the pink, and fill out the gaps, it makes it perfect.”

Together, they worked in silence, Belinda carefully wriggling the plants from their terracotta pots to hand to Paul. Every so often, he would look up at her for approval on where to put the flowers. “Stand up and look,” she told him. He’d nod and bend down again to place the plant in the correct, coordinated place.

“Tell me something good, a nice memory that you had with your mother.”

Paul released a breath. “Good try,
Zia
. They’re few and far between.”

“There must be something?” Belinda sighed. “All right, I’ll tell you some of mine and maybe that will help. When I was little, my mum would let me watch her get dressed. You see the cloth the girls wore at the customary rites?”

“Yeah. Good for the bum.”

She swatted him with her spade. “I’d watch her put on her gold necklaces and her bracelets and her lipstick. If I was good, she’d give me a little lipstick. My daddy was the one who taught me how to swim and my mum was the one who taught me how to cook. On Palm Sunday, we’d pound fufu together. Hard work, but we were together. You like cooking don’t you?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly, covering the newly potted azaleas with earth. “Mum taught me too. We’d make biscotti together. She said I was good at baking.”

“And that’s not a good memory?”

“I suppose.” He sighed again. “I’m sure it wasn’t this hard for Nick to come up with something and I don’t know why he’s not here.”

“Try again.”

He removed a glove and put the phone on speaker. It rang and Belinda looked around as the ringtone seemed to be echoing in the graveyard. Her breath caught. “Look, Paul.”

Nick waved from a distance and when he reached Paul, he picked up his brother and hugged him tightly. “Sorry,” he whispered. Finally seeing Belinda, he released Paul and swooped down to kiss her on both cheeks. “Hi,
Zia
.”

She gave him an embarrassed smile, feeling as if she’d interrupted them both. “This looks great,” Nick praised. “Not that she deserves it.”

Belinda could have hit him. Just when they were making progress. “Maybe not,” she said, sternly getting to her feet and putting her hands on her hips. “But this isn’t for her. It’s for you.”

Nick’s eyebrows rose. “How does that work?”

“You can say your prayers here, talk to your mother in peace and quiet. It’s to comfort you. To give you somewhere to say how you feel. Why does she care, she’s not here anymore?”

Nick ruffled his hair. “Whether I come here or not, it doesn’t matter to me.” He paused. “How much did my dad tell you?”

“Most of it,” she admitted. “Paul told me the rest.”

“So you know she did this to herself,” Nick vented. “She put herself here. It’s all her own fault.” He shook his head. “To be honest, you’ve been more of a mum to Paul in the last, what, month than she ever was.”

Belinda froze. “That’s… you can’t…”

“I’m telling the truth. Look Paul, I hate being here. I really do, it’s fucking abysmal. All it does is remind me what she did.”

“I’m trying here, Nick,” Paul shrugged, tapping the spade to his palm.

“To do what?” Belinda asked. “Be perfect? Religious? This is only for you, only if it brings you comfort.”

“Nothing comforts me!” he burst out. “Was I really that bad?”

Nick winced, “You were a bit of a dick, yes.”

Belinda hit him with her spade. “Oww!” he muttered, clutching his bicep.

“For goodness sake, what’s the matter with you?” Brushing him aside, she threw the spade to the ground and removed her gloves. “Look at me Paul.” She squashed his angular face between her palms until those red rimmed, blue eyes focused on her. “I said it before and I’ll say it again. You are loved. Your father loves you, your wife, your sister, your brother, for all his mouth, love you.
I
love you. She’s not here anymore but we are. We all are, for you.”

Paul put his arms around Belinda and hugged her tightly. Looking over Paul’s shoulder she waved Nick into the hug and she was suddenly crushed between the two of them. Belinda was the first to struggle out from them. “Now. We’re going to finish this and if you don’t want to come back here again, fine. No one says you have to.”

“Praise be,” Nick murmured. She glared at him and he sent her a slight wink. It made her lips twitch. God help her, she was so sappy when it came to those boys. Paul sniffed and wiped his eyes. Between the three of them, the flower bed was complete in a matter of minutes. They examined their work for a while, and Belinda asked for their hands. “Quick prayer.”

“Uh, Ma…” Paul began in exasperation, until he realised what he had said and clamped his mouth shut. Nick and Belinda stared at him. His eyes were wide with horror as he helplessly scratched his head. “I don’t know why that slipped out.”

“I do,” Nick asserted. “Told you, you’ve had a proper mum, why not say it how it is? Are we off? I’m done with cemetery time and I fancy a pint.”

Belinda couldn’t form words, her heart was racing a hundred miles an hour. Did that just happen? Nick removed his phone and took a photo. “For the future. I’m not convinced I’ll ever see you speechless again. Gina won’t believe me without hard evidence.” He looked down at the photo. “Hmm. Might start a scrapbook.”

“Let’s go,” Paul suggested, hurriedly collecting the discarded pots, gloves and spade. “
Zia
, I think we all could do with a drink.”

Belinda found she could only nod. Maybe she needed to speak to Massimo and apologise. He deserved an apology just because she had seriously underestimated the power of absence from a person who was beginning to consume her whole life.

Belinda caught Gina on a free evening. It had taken a few days for the hangover from the post graveyard confession to abate. She told them to swear that they wouldn’t tell their father that she had been to Mary Alice’s grave. Paul and Nick had exchanged looks and she gave a warning at a higher volume.

“I said, don’t!”

They held up their hands and promised faithfully they wouldn’t breathe a word, at the same time, shoving over another glass of whiskey to her side of the table. Somehow she’d kept up with the Da Canaveze boys until nine thirty and then, she needed to be in her own bed, asleep, without them cackling in her ears. Their amusement did remove the awkwardness of Paul’s blurt, even though she hugged the two letter word to her heart every other minute.

“Come in, come in! Apparently, you’re not allowed to drink.”

“Pardon?”

“Nick told me you were knocking back whiskey and gingers like they were your best friend. So no.”

Rather than dragging her ‘narcoleptic-pregnant-arse’ around London, Gina had proclaimed they could dress shop from the flat on the internet and Belinda could cook something comforting. Knowing that Nick had probably already discussed the incident with his wife, Belinda kept it to herself as they looked online for dresses that would suit a Catholic Church blessing. In between, Belinda made a chicken stew for Gina with fried yams.

“Best. Food. Ever,” Gina muttered, her mouth full of chicken. “I need so much protein at the moment.”

“Have as much as you want,” Belinda told her, her stomach warm with pleasure at the compliment. By the time Nick came home, Gina was fast asleep. Belinda had tucked everything into Tupperware boxes and was carefully folding Nick’s socks for the sake of something to do.

“Er, what are you doing?” he asked on a laugh, giving her a kiss on the cheek.

“Being useful.”

“You had your chance with me. I’m married now,” Nick said, covering Gina with a blanket and kissing her forehead.

“How cheeky!” Belinda blustered.

“Shall I drop you home?”

“Yes, please. I’ve got work in the morning.”

In a lull in the conversation, Belinda watched the street lights sparkle over Nick’s wedding ring before saying hesitantly, “About your father...”

“Yes?”

“Well. I don’t know.”
I don’t feel good enough. Or feel worthy of this attention. And I don’t want to go down the wrong path, not when I’ve been burned so badly by so many people. It makes no sense, but I feel I’m being set up to fail.

“There’s no rush,” Nick said gently. “When he wants to make things move, he’ll make the effort to get off his Ozwald Boateng
TM
suited arse.”

Side stepping the language issue, Belinda asked, “You don’t think he does? Want to make the effort?”

“I think he respects you enough to let you give him some indication that you’ve made up your mind. Don’t push yourself, if you’re not ready. All right,
mina
?”

Belinda blinked. The hell was going on with these children? “Do you know what that word means?”

His eyes twinkled. “Carry on and it’ll be official. But like I said. Take your time.”

The electronic dashboard flashed an incoming text message.
Mrs. Soprano: CHEAT.

“You should tell Gina to be nicer to me,” Nick said once he could control his laughter. “We’ve only been married two minutes.”

“What are you cheating at?”

“It’s a very strong word. Misused.” They pulled up outside Belinda’s home. “Here we are. I’ll speak to you later.”

With another kiss to her cheek, he helped her out of the car then sped off into the distance. Something dodgy was definitely going on. Maybe a slap or two with a wooden fufu spoon would do it. Beating worked in her day. No reason it wouldn’t help now.

Enough with the waiting business. If Belinda was going to reject him, she could do so to his face. His ego told him it was unlikely, because he wasn’t used to not getting his own way. He sent a text to Paul to thank him for letting him know Belinda had a day off and said he would go and see her.

Don’t chase her off
was the theme of the flurry of text messages he received from the immediate Da Canavezes in London within five minutes of his text to Paul. They had all obviously done some sort of group report and now he was being told off by a bunch of pups. He sent a group text in return.
Do you not all have things to do?
The silence was most telling. Sitting back in the car, he directed his driver to Thornton Heath. There would be no admission of nerves or concern that Belinda may use something worryingly fatal to beat against his head. She had asked for space, and she’d had plenty. He’d missed her. Desperately.

There was no room outside Belinda’s home for the Bentley and normally displeasure would have set in and a few cars may have been seriously damaged. However, time was of the essence. The car was double parked in front of her house and Massimo swiftly exited the vehicle.

He knocked on the door once and adjusted his tie. Belinda’s head poked around the door and her eyes widened as soon as she took all of him in, glasses on a chain around her neck clattering against the door.

“What are you doing here?”

“I would like to take you out for the evening.”

Funny how he thought his memories had deceived him, the fantasy of a romance abroad had given Belinda a near angelic glow. But it was still there, right to the glint in her dark eyes. “What for?”

Massimo heard himself laughing before he could stop. “To have a nice time, perhaps?”

“And you think I don’t have anything else to do other than what you want?”

“If you are busy, I can make alternative arrangements for your friend or whomever it is you are seeing.” His offer was in all seriousness. Whoever it was would just have to wait another day, just as he had to wait.

Belinda’s eyes flared with fire. “I don’t want to change my plans.”

“May I come in? Your neighbour seems to have a very close eye on me.”

“God’s sake. All right, fine, come in.” She stepped to the side, allowing him to enter before closing it behind him. She pointed him in the direction of some floral patterned chairs. “What’s so important that I have to change my plans for you?”