Accidentally Expecting! (11 page)

‘Let’s go back inside,’ he said, helping Leo to his feet.

In silence they made their way back across the lawn. Leo had recovered his spirits, as if the last few minutes had never been, and was chatting happily about the grand estate he believed was his.

The nurse came out onto the step, smiling kindly at Leo, welcoming him inside.

‘We’ve got your favourite cakes,’ she said.

‘Oh, thank you. I’ve been trying to explain to my friend here about Dante. Look, let me show you his picture.’

From a chest of drawers behind the bed Leo took a photo album and opened it at a page containing one picture. It was Dante, taken recently. He was sitting with Leo, both of them smiling and seeming content with each other. Leo looked at it with pride.

‘That was taken—Well, you can see that he’s nothing like…’ He looked at Dante sorrowfully.

Ferne felt her throat constrict and knew that in another moment she would be weeping. The picture was clearly Dante, and the fact that Leo didn’t recognise him told a terrible story about his mental state.

‘You see what a nice boy he is,’ Leo said, running his fingers over the face on the page. ‘He was always my favourite. Look.’

He began turning the pages, revealing earlier pictures. Ferne gasped as she saw Leo as a young man before his tragedy, sitting with a little boy on his knee. Even at this distance of years she could recognise Dante in the child. His face was the one she knew, bright and vivid with intelligence, gleaming with humour.

But the greatest tragedy of all was the fact that the man’s face was exactly the same. Their features were different, but
their expressions were identical. In his day, Leo had been the man Dante was now, dazzling, charmingly wicked, capable of anything.

And he had come to this.

Turning the pages, Leo revealed more pictures, including one of a beautiful young woman.

‘That was my wife,’ he said softly. ‘She died.’

But Dante shook his head, mouthing, ‘Left him.’

There was the child Dante again, with a man and a woman.

‘My sister Anna,’ Leo said proudly. ‘And her husband, Taddeo Rinucci. They died in a car accident years ago.’

He switched back to the modern picture of Dante and showed it to the real man.

‘You see? If you could remember what he looks like, and then—?’ Tears began to roll down his face.

Ferne’s heart broke for Dante, sitting there regarding this tragedy with calm eyes. When he spoke to Leo, it was with tender kindness, asking nothing, giving everything.

‘I’ll remember,’ he said. ‘Trust me for that. And I’ll try to find some way of making things nicer for you. You know you can rely on me.’

‘Oh yes,’ Leo said brightly. ‘You’re always so good to me—who are you?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Dante said with an effort. ‘As long as we’re friends, names don’t matter.’

Leo beamed.

‘Oh, thank you, thank you. I want—I want—’

Suddenly he was breathing wildly and shuddering. His arms began to flail, and it took all Dante’s strength to hold him in his chair.

‘You’d better go,’ the nurse said tersely. ‘We know what to do when he’s like this.’

‘I’ll call later,’ Dante said.

‘By all means, but please go now.’

Reluctantly they did so.

‘What happened to him?’ Ferne asked as they left.

‘He had an epileptic seizure,’ Dante said bluntly. ‘That’s another thing that happens with his condition. He’ll lose consciousness, and when he awakens he won’t remember anything, even our visit. Once this happened and I insisted on staying, but my presence only distressed him. Possibly it’s my fault he had the seizure, because seeing me agitated him.’

‘That poor man,’ she said fervently.

‘Yes, he is. And, now you know, let’s go to the airport. You’ve seen all you need to.’

She agreed without argument, sensing that Dante was at the end of his tether.

They spoke little on the short flight back to Naples. Ferne felt as though she never wanted to speak another word again. Her mind seemed to be filled with darkness, and she could see only more darkness ahead. Perhaps things would be better when they got home and could talk about it. She tried hard to believe that.

But, when they reached home, he stopped at the front door.

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back later.’

She knew better than to suggest coming with him. He wanted to get away from her; that was the truth.

And perhaps, she thought as she opened the front door, she too needed to be away from him for a while. That was the point they had reached.

The apartment was frighteningly quiet. She’d been alone there before, but the silence hadn’t had this menacing quality because Dante’s laughing spirit had always seemed to be with her, even when he was away. But now the laughter was dead,
perhaps for ever, replaced by the hostility of a man who felt he’d found betrayal where he’d thought to find only trust.

It had all happened so fast. Only hours ago, she’d been basking in the conviction of his unspoken love, certain that the trouble between them could be resolved and the way made clear. Then the heavens had fallen on her.

No, on them both. Even when Dante had been at his most cruel, she had recognised the pain and disillusion that drove him. Her heart cried that he should trust her, but life had taught him that the traps were always waiting at his feet, ready to be sprung when he least expected it.

In desperation she’d told him that she loved him, but now it hit her with the force of a sledgehammer that he hadn’t said as much in return. He’d spoken only of killing her love, and had done his best to do it. With all her heart she longed to believe that he’d been forcing himself, denying his true feelings, but she was no longer sure what those feelings were. At times, she’d thought she detected real hatred in his eyes.

Perhaps that was the real Dante, a man whose need to keep the world at bay was greater than any love he could feel. Perhaps the cold hostility he’d turned on her was the strongest emotion he could truly feel.

She sat there in the darkness, shaking with misery and despair.

In the early hours she heard him arrive, moving quietly. When the door of the bedroom opened just a little, she said, ‘I’m awake.’

‘I’m sorry, did I wake you?’ His voice was quiet.

‘I can’t sleep.’

He didn’t come near the bed but went to stand by the window, looking out in the direction of Vesuvius, as they had once done together.

‘That was what you meant, wasn’t it?’ she asked, coming
beside him. ‘Never knowing when it was going to send out a warning.’

‘Yes, that was what I meant.’

‘And, now that it has, we’re all supposed to make a run for it?’

‘If you have any sense.’

‘I never had any sense.’

‘I know.’ He gave a brief laugh. ‘Nobody who knew us would imagine I was the one with common sense, would they?’

‘Certainly not me,’ she said, trying to recapture their old bantering way of talking.

‘So I have to be wise for both of us. I should think what happened today would have opened your eyes. You saw what’s probably waiting for me at the end of the road.’

‘Not if you take medical help to avoid it,’ she pressed.

‘There is no avoiding it, or at least so little chance as not to justify the risk. To become like Leo is my nightmare. Maybe one day it’ll happen, and if we were married what would you do? Would you have the sense to leave me then?’

Ferne stared at him, unable to believe that he’d really spoken such words.

‘You’d want me to leave you—just abandon you?’

‘I’d want you to get as far away from me as possible. I’d want you to go where you’d never have to see me, or even think about me, again.’

Shattered, Ferne stepped back and looked at him. Then a blind rage swept over her and she drew back her hand, ready to aim at his face, but at the last minute she dropped it and turned away, almost running in her fear of what she had been about to do.

He came after her, also furious, pulling her around to face him.

‘If you want to hit me, do it,’ he snapped.

‘I ought to,’ she breathed.

‘Yes, you ought to. I’ve insulted you, haven’t I? Fine, I’ll insult you again. And again. Until you face reality.’

The rage in his voice frightened her. Part of her understood that his cruelty was a deliberate attempt to drive her off her for own sake. Yet still it stunned her in its intensity, warning her of depths to him that she had never understood because he had never wanted her to understand.

‘Reality means what you want it to mean,’ she said. ‘Maybe I see things differently.’

‘Marriage? Children? Holding hands as we wander into the sunset? Only I wouldn’t just be holding your hand, I’d be clinging to it for support.’

‘And I’d be glad to give you that support, because I love you.’

‘Don’t love me,’ he said savagely. ‘I have no love to give back.’

‘Is that really true?’ she whispered.

The look he gave her was terrible, full of despair and suffering that she could do nothing to ease. That was when she faced the truth: if she had no power to ease his pain, then everything was dead between them.

‘Try not to hate me,’ he said wearily.

‘I thought you wanted me to hate you as the quickest way of getting rid of me.’

‘I thought so too, but I guess I can’t manage it. Don’t hate me more than you have to, and I’ll try not to hate you.’

‘Hate
me
?’ she echoed. ‘After everything we’ve—Could you hate me?’

He was silent for a long moment before whispering, ‘Yes. If I must.’

He looked away again, out of the window, to where the dawn was breaking. The air was clear and fresh; the birds were beginning to sing. It was going to be a glorious day.

She came up close behind him, touching him gently and resting her cheek against his back. Her head was whirling with the words that she wanted to say, and yet no words would be enough.

She could feel him warm against her, as she’d known him so often before, and suddenly, irrationally, she was filled with hope. This was Dante, who loved her, no matter what he said. They would be together because it was fated. All she had to do was convince him of that.

‘Darling,’ she whispered.

His voice was hard, and he spoke without looking at her.

‘There’s a flight to England at eleven this morning. I’ve booked your seat.’

He came with her to the airport, helping her to check in and remaining with her as they waited for the first call. There was no more tenderness in his manner than there had been before. He was doing his polite duty.

She couldn’t bear it. Whatever might happen, there was no way she could go one way and leave him to go another, at the mercy of any wind that blew.

‘Dante, please.’

‘Don’t.’

‘Tell me to stay,’ she whispered. ‘We’ll make it work somehow.’

He shook his head, his eyes weary and defeated. ‘It’s not your fault. It’s me. I can’t change. I’ll always be a nightmare for any woman to live with. You were right. I shouldn’t have lived with you and not warned you. I made the terms but didn’t tell you what they were. Doesn’t that prove I’m a monster?’

‘You’re not a monster,’ she said fervently. ‘Just a man
trapped in a vicious web. But you don’t have to live in it alone. Let me come inside, let me help you.’

His face was suddenly wild.

‘And see you trapped too? No, get out while you can. I’ve done you so much damage, I won’t do more. For pity’s sake, for
my
sake, go!’

He almost ran from her then, hurrying into the crowd without looking back even once. She watched as the distance between them grew wider, until he vanished.

But only from her sight. In her mind and heart where he would always live, she could still see him, making his way back to the empty apartment and the empty life, where he would be alone for ever in the doubly bitter loneliness of those who had chosen their isolation.

I
T WAS
late at night when Ferne reached her apartment, to find it gloomy and cold. Locking the door behind her, she stood in the silence, thinking of Dante far away, locked in a chill darkness that was more than physical.

She’d eaten nothing all day, and after turning on the heating she began to prepare a meal, but suddenly she stopped and simply went to bed. She had no energy to be sensible.

Where are you?
she thought.
What are you doing? Are you lying alone, your thoughts reaching out to me, as mine to you? Or are you passing the time with some girl you picked up for the evening? No, it’s too soon. You’ll do that eventually, but not just yet.

She slept for a little while, awoke, slept again. Sleeping or waking, there were only shadows in all directions. At last she was forced to admit that a new day had dawned, and slowly got out of bed.

Her first action was to call Hope. She’d managed to keep her up to date about the disaster, Dante’s discovery of her files, their trip to Milan and her return to England, and Hope had asked for a call to say she’d arrived safely.

‘I meant to call last night, but I got in so late,’ she apologised.

‘Never mind. How are you? You sound terrible.’

‘I’ll be fine when I’ve had a cup of tea,’ she said, trying to sound relaxed.

‘How are you really?’ Hope persisted with motherly concern.

‘I’ll need a little time,’ she admitted. ‘How’s Dante?’

‘He’ll need time too. Carlo and Ruggiero went round to see him last night. He wasn’t at home, so they trawled the local bars until they found him sitting in a corner, drinking whisky. They took him home, put him to bed and stayed with him until morning. Carlo just called me to say he’s awake, with an almighty hangover, but otherwise all right.’

They parted with mutual expressions of affection. A few minutes later the phone rang. It was Mike.

‘I’ve been hearing rumours,’ he said. ‘They say you might be back in the land of the living.’

She almost laughed. ‘That’s one way of putting it. I’m back in England.’

‘Great! I have work piling up for you.’

‘I thought you dumped me.’

‘I don’t dump people with your earning potential. That job you turned down is still open. They tried someone else, didn’t like the result and told me to get you at any price. It’s fantastic money.’

The money was awesome. If the Sandor episode had propelled her into the big time, her refusal of an even better offer had given her rarity value.

‘All right,’ she interrupted Mike at last. ‘Just tell me when and where, and I’ll be there.’

Later that day she went to the theatre, where the major star and his equally famous fiancée were rehearsing. From the first moment everything went well. They liked her, she liked them. Their genuine love for each other made them, at least for the
moment, really nice people. They praised her pictures and insisted that she must take some more at their wedding.

The tale of her meeting with Sandor in Italy had got out. She began to receive offers to ‘tell all’ to the press. She refused them, but Sandor had heard rumours and become nervous, having given a self-serving interview to a newspaper, illustrated with several of Ferne’s notorious pictures. Her fame had increased. So had her price.

All around her, life was blossoming.

No, she thought, not life. Just her career. Life no longer existed.

She talked regularly with Hope and gained the impression that Dante’s existence was much like her own, outwardly successful but inwardly bleak.

But there was no direct word from him until she’d been home for a month, and then she received a text:

She texted back:

After that there was silence. Desperately she struggled to reconcile herself to the fact that she would never hear from him again, but then she received a letter.

Night after night she wept with the letter pressed against her heart. At last she replied:

He didn’t reply. She had not expected him to.

Her sleep was haunted by wretched dreams. In one she found that time had passed and suddenly there he was, older but still Dante. She reached out eagerly to him but he only gazed at her without recognition. Someone took him by the arm to lead him away.

Then she knew that the worst had happened, and he’d become the brain-damaged man he’d always feared. She longed for him to look back at her just for a moment, but he never did. She’d been blotted from his mind as if she had never been.

She woke from that dream to find herself screaming.

Struggling up in bed, she sat fighting back her sobs until suddenly her whole body seemed to become one gigantic heave. She flung herself out of bed and just managed to dash to the bathroom in time.

When it was over, she sat shivering and considering the implications.

It could be just a tummy bug,
she thought.
It doesn’t mean I’m pregnant.

But it did. And she knew it. A hurried visit to the chemist, and a test confirmed it.

The discovery that she was to have Dante’s child came like a thunderclap. She’d thought herself modern, careful, sensible, but in the dizzying delight of loving him she’d forgotten ev
erything else. In a moment her life had been turned upside down. Everything she’d considered settled was in chaos.

A child of Dante’s, born from their love, but also born with chance of the hereditary illness that had distorted his life: a constant reminder of what she might have had and had lost.

The sensible answer was a termination, but she dismissed the thought at once. If she couldn’t have Dante, she could still have a little part of him, and nothing on earth would persuade her to destroy that. Fiercely she laid her hands over her stomach, still perfectly flat.

‘I won’t let anyone or anything hurt you,’ she vowed. ‘No matter what the future holds, you’re mine, and I’ll keep you safe.’

Then she realised that she’d spoken the words aloud, and looked around the apartment, wondering who she’d really been addressing. One thing was for sure: Dante had a right to know, and then, perhaps…

‘No, no!’ she cried. ‘No false hopes. No fantastic dreams. Just tell him and then—and then?’

Once her mind was made up, she acted quickly, calling Mike and clearing the decks at work. Then she got on a plane to Naples, and booked into a hotel. She told nobody that she was coming, not even Hope. This was between Dante and herself.

It was still light when she walked the short distance to the apartment block and stood looking up at his windows, trying to discern any sign of life. But it was too soon for lamps to be on.

She took the lift to the fifth floor and hesitated. It was unlike her to lack confidence, but this was so vital, and the next few minutes so important. She listened, but could hear nothing from inside. The silence seemed a bleak forecast of what was to come. Suddenly her courage drained away and she stepped back.

But her spirit rebelled at the thought of giving up without
trying, and she raised her hand to ring the bell. Then she dropped it again. What was the point? Dante himself had believed that you couldn’t buck fate, and now she saw that he was right. Fate was against them. Defeated, she headed for the elevator.

‘Don’t go!’

The words were almost a scream. Turning, she saw Dante standing there in his doorway. His hair was dishevelled, his shirt torn open, his face was haggard and his eyes looked as though he hadn’t slept for a month. But the only thing she noticed was that his arms were outstretched to her, and the next moment she was enfolded in them.

They held each other in silence, clasped tight, not kissing, but clinging to each other as if for refuge.

‘I thought you were never going to knock,’ he said frantically. ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’

‘You knew I was coming?’

‘I saw you standing down there. I didn’t believe it at first. I’ve seen you so often and you always vanished. Then I heard the lift coming up, and your footsteps—but you didn’t ring the bell, and I was afraid it was just another hallucination. I’ve had so many; I couldn’t bear another. So many times you’ve come to me and vanished before I could wake and keep you here.’

He drew her into the apartment, and enfolded her in his arms again.

‘Thank God you’re here,’ he said, words that carried her to the heights.

But his next words dashed her down again.

‘I’ve longed to see you just once more. We parted badly, and it was my fault. Now at least there can be peace between us.’

So in that he hadn’t changed. He was no longer denying
his love, but in the long term he was still determined to keep apart from her.

She took a deep breath. Relief at finding him here had undermined her resolution, but now the moment had arrived.

‘It isn’t that simple,’ she said, stepping back and regarding him with loving eyes. ‘Something’s happened. I came to tell you about it—but then I’ll go away if you like, and you need never see me again.’

His mouth twisted. ‘That doesn’t work very well.’

‘No, with me neither, but when you hear what I have to say you might be so angry that you want me to leave.’

‘Nothing could make me angry with you.’

‘You were once.’

‘I stopped being angry a long time ago. Most of it was aimed at myself. I forced you into an impossible situation, I know that. I should have stayed clear of you from the start.’

‘It’s too late for that. The time we had together has left me with more than memories.’ Seeing him frown, she said, ‘I’m going to have a baby, Dante.’

Just for a moment she saw joy on his face, but it was gone in an instant, as though he’d quenched it forcibly.

‘Are you sure?’ he breathed.

‘There’s no doubt. I did a test, and then I came here to tell you, because you have the right to know. But that’s it. I don’t expect you to react in a conventional way because I know you can’t.’

‘Wait, wait!’ he said fiercely. ‘I need time to take this in. You can’t just—A baby! Dear God!’

‘I did dare to hope you’d be pleased,’ she said sadly. ‘But I suppose you can’t be.’

‘Pleased—at bringing another child into the world to spend a lifetime wondering what was happening inside him?
I thought we were safe, that you were taking care; hell, I don’t know what I thought. But I always swore I’d never father a child.’

‘Well, you’ve fathered one,’ she said quietly. ‘We have to go on from there. You can’t turn the clock back.’

‘There is one way.’

‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘Don’t even mention that. If you think for a moment that I could destroy your child, you don’t begin to know me. I told you I love you, but I could easily hate you if you ask me to do that.’

But she couldn’t stay angry as she looked at him, saddened by the confusion in his face. He’d always insisted on being in control, quick-stepping with fate to the edge, but now he’d reached an edge he’d never dreamed of and he was lost. The thought gave her an idea.

‘Fate doesn’t always do what we expect,’ she said, slipping her arms about his neck. ‘It’s had this waiting for you quite a while, and it’s probably been laughing up its sleeve, thinking it’s found the way to defeat you. But we’re not going to let it win.’

He rested his forehead against hers. ‘Doesn’t fate always win?’ he whispered.

‘That depends who you have fighting with you.’ She stepped back, taking his hand and laying it over her stomach. ‘You’re not alone any more. There are two of us backing you up now.’

He stared. ‘Two?’

‘Two people fighting on your side.’ She gave a faint smile at the stunned look on his face, and pointed to her stomach. ‘There is actually someone in there, you know. A person. I don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, but it’s yours, and it’s as ready to defend you as I am. When you get to know each other, you’ll be the best of friends.’

He was very still, and she sensed him holding his breath
as he struggled to come to terms with ideas that had always been alien to him.

‘It won’t be easy,’ she urged, speaking with gentle persistence. ‘It may have your family’s inherited illness, so we’ll find out, and if the news is bad at least you’ll be there to help. You can explain things that nobody else can. The two of you will probably form an exclusive society that shuts me out, but I won’t mind, because you’ll have each other, and that’s all you’ll really need.’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Never shutting you out, because we can’t manage without you. But, my love, you don’t know what you’re letting yourself in for.’

‘Yes, I do: a life of worry, always wondering how long the happiness will last.’

‘If you know that—’

‘But the other choice is a life without you, and I choose you. I choose you for me and as a father for our child, because nobody else can be the father you can. Nobody else knows the secrets you do.’

He held her close, where she belonged, where she’d dreamed of being all the long, lonely weeks. They neither kissed nor caressed, but stood still and silent, rediscovering each other’s warmth, coming home. At last he led her into the bedroom and drew her down onto the bed.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said quickly. ‘I won’t try to make love to you.’

‘Darling, it’s all right,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m in the early stages. It’s quite safe.’

‘Safe,’ he whispered. ‘What does “safe” mean? You can never be sure, can you? And we won’t take any risks.’ He gave a sharp, self-critical laugh. ‘Listen to me, talking about not taking risks. But I’m such a selfish beggar; I’ve never had to
think about anyone else’s health before. I guess I’ll have to get working on that.’

She kissed him in a passion of tenderness.

‘You’re almost there now,’ she murmured.