Christmas at Claridge's (50 page)

She met his stare and his eyes narrowed in recognition of the truth. ‘I know exactly what he is to you . . . and to Luca.’

Clem’s jaw dropped. ‘Gabriel—’

‘Does he know?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

She scented the threat in his tone. ‘He was back here by the time I found out.’ She pushed the covers away, climbing onto her knees. ‘Gabriel, please, you can’t tell
him.’

‘Does Chiara know? She was in on the secret. You kept it from him together?’

Clem shook her head vehemently. ‘No, she never knew. She only met him a few years after Luca was born. She never knew that I knew him.’

‘And it never occurred to her? How could she not see the resemblance? It is so obvious!’

‘Why? Because they have brown hair and brown eyes? This is Italy, Gabriel! And who would have looked for it anyway? Why would she have ever considered
I
might have met him? He was
my brother’s pen pal; it all happened a year before I even met her.’

‘How convenient.’

‘Convenient?’ Clem replied shrilly. ‘Do you know what it did to me when I got her letter saying she’d met him? Do you have any idea what it was like knowing that, not
only was my son here, but they were going to marry? But how could I tell her, after everything she’d done for me?’

He looked at her as if he were studying a butterfly – beguiled by her beauty, baffled by her purpose. ‘You know he hates you.’

The words hit their mark and she slumped back on her heels. ‘I know.’

‘And you will settle for that?’ he whispered, incredulous. He rushed at her suddenly, grabbing her by the shoulder.
‘I
love you! Why is that not enough? I can give you
everything.’

Clem shook her head helplessly, crying again as her hair stuck to her wet cheeks. Gabriel released her, a look of disgust on his face. ‘You would rather have his hate than my
love.’

She juddered, trying to catch her breath – out of words, out of explanations. She had spent ten years living a lie, covering the fatal cracks within her and trying to build a life on
shifting sands. She gave a tiny nod.

‘Say it!’ he shouted.

‘Y–yes.’

Silence fell like snow as he rose from the bed in disdain. Her lack of pride had gifted him his, at least. ‘Then we are done here.’ His voice was quiet. Final. ‘There is
nothing I can do. You are determined to suffer because it is all you know. You will never be happy.’

‘Gabr—’

A familiar sound – so familiar – outside startled them both and they turned to look towards the open windows.

No! Her heart pounding against her ribs, Clem threw the bedcovers off and ran to the nearest one, looking back up the path towards the garden gate.

Tom turned back, looking up to face her at the window, his eyes red-rimmed, his face full of sorrow as he pressed his palms to his temples. By his feet was a posy of flowers from Chiara’s
garden, and a football bouncing slowly down the path – the calling cards of a broken family who’d come in thanks. And left in tears.

‘You’re a mum.’

Stella’s voice was as weak as Clem’s colour and Clem couldn’t meet her eyes. She hadn’t met anyone’s for nine hours now – not since Tom’s had joined
hers in despair as Chiara, Rafa and Luca’s door had remained defiantly shut to them both. She hadn’t closed them, either. Sleep wouldn’t come, and she’d spent the entire
flight home staring at the haunting image of Luca coming down the aisle, her handsome, nervous little boy looking over to
her
– for the first time in both their lives – for
encouragement. Her tears were constant, merely coming at variable speeds, and Tom squeezed her hand as a fresh batch splashed onto the rough, wooden, slightly sticky table.

It was lunchtime and Charlie’s Café was rammed – Clem hadn’t been able to face going straight home – although Stella, in her excitement, had arrived early and
bagged the last table. A converted, whitewashed chapel with the original church chairs and a sunny courtyard outside, it was the perfect back-to-Blighty hangout, with colourful pictures of
Portobello hanging on the walls and high tea behind the counters. On the table, a large teapot, three flapjacks and several bags of ready-salted crisps – ‘welcome home’ presents
– lay untouched between them all, and even Stella wasn’t eyeing them up. One look at Clem and the story Tom had told swiped her appetite clean away

‘A mum,’ Stella echoed in utter disbelief, as though she’d been told Clem was an alien and had come to obliterate planet earth.

‘Yes, I’m a . . . I’m a . . .’ Her voice, even to her own ears, sounded strange and disconnected, and she could feel Stella’s and Tom’s stares joining up,
like a cat’s cradle, weaving them tightly together with mutual concern.

‘You poor, poor darling,’ Stella whispered desperately, batting Tom’s hand off Clem’s and replacing it with her own. It was warmer, Tom’s cool with his own shock.
Forced to choose, Chiara had chosen Luca over him. ‘Why don’t you try calling Rafa? He’s probably had a bit of time to . . . you know, calm down. Take stock.’

‘What? Of the fact that the boy he loves like a son really is his son?’ Clem said sarcastically. ‘I think it might take more than a day to absorb
that
one.’

Stella winced.

‘Anyway if you knew how much he hated me before all this even came out . . .’ Clem’s voice trailed away again.

‘You’re always saying how much he hates you—’

‘That’s because he
does
! I’m not imagining it, Stell. I’m not being sensitive. He treated me with contempt at every encounter. He didn’t smile at me
– not once – during the entire bloody summer.’ It was true. Even as she’d clung to him, and he to her, their bodies intertwined as one, he hadn’t let go of the anger,
resentful of the hold she still had over him after all these years. And even if it had meant to him what it had to her, it was irrelevant now. It wouldn’t have survived this.

‘But why should he hate you so much?’

‘Pride? I never told him why we broke up.’ She shrugged. ‘I just stopped writing.’

Stella looked dubious. ‘That’s a pretty long time to hold a grudge for what was effectively just a fling.’

Clem shook her head. ‘It was way more than that. We had made plans. He was going to transfer his art degree from Florence to the Ruskin. We wanted to be together.
Properly
.’
Her voice tremored. Didn’t they see? It was supposed to have been for ever. ‘But then I found out I was pregnant and . . .’ She shrugged. ‘Everything changed. I confided in
Mum. We’d always shared everything and I knew she’d know what to do.’ Her voice became tiny. ‘I couldn’t believe it when she gave me an ultimatum.’

‘Ultimatum?’ Stella echoed.

Clem looked up at her. ‘Have an abortion or get out,’ she replied fatly.

Stella and Tom were silent.

‘Why didn’t you tell Rafa? Surely he would have w
—
’

‘What? Wanted to give up his studies, his home, his future – to scrape together a living supporting us? He was nineteen! He wasn’t any more ready for a baby than I was. He
would have thought I’d tricked him or trapped him . . .’ She threw her hands in the air despondently. ‘It would only have messed up both our lives.’

‘So you just pretended to have the abortion?’ Stella asked, the horror on her face the same as it had been on Gabriel and Tom’s. ‘You went through all that
alone
?’

Clem slumped over the table, her forehead only inches from it as she tried to breathe through the wave of agony that broke over her again without warning. Tom’s and Stella’s hands
both reached out, as though trying to hold her up or pull her back, but she didn’t notice their efforts. Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Thinking hurt – living without Luca –
hurt.

Her blood ran cold again as she wondered what Chiara was telling him about her. How was she recounting to him the story of how his mother had got on a plane and left for home without him? In her
dreams and daydreams over the intervening years, when she had fantasized about Luca being told about his English mother, and their subsequent reunion, she had known that Chiara would be her ally
– articulating Clem’s distress and anguish, how she’d not left his side even for a moment in the few days they’d had together, how she’d crammed a lifetime of love
into those mere hours . . . But that was before Chiara had found out that the man she’d loved for so many years was Luca’s father. It wasn’t only Luca and Rafa who’d been
deceived by Clem, but Chiara herself too. So what was she telling him now?

‘You’ve got to stop blaming yourself, Clem,’ Tom said quietly. ‘You were eighteen.’

‘Plenty of girls are good mothers at eighteen,’ she replied flatly. It was no excuse.

‘Yes, but you weren’t given that opportunity. Our mother made sure you had no chance of bringing up that baby alone.’ A foreign note of bitterness soured his words and Clem
looked up at him. ‘Just when you needed her most, she threatened to withdraw everything: love, security, your family, a home.’ He shook his head. ‘If anyone’s to blame for
all this, it’s
her
.’

Clem frowned. She had never once heard Tom utter a word against their mother before. Not once.

‘No wonder you hated her,’ Stella said quietly.

Clem looked ahead at her best friend, her head spinning from the sudden change in direction of the blame game. ‘I . . . I didn’t hate her.’

‘No?’ Tom cocked an eyebrow disbelievingly. ‘Well, you bloody well should have hated her. I would have done.’ He stared back at her angrily. ‘In fact, I’m
glad you threw everything back in her face, including that fucking bag.’ He shook his head as context gave Clem’s actions a new meaning. ‘She only gave it to you to salve her
conscience, to buy your forgiveness for what she made you do. She’s got no fucking idea of the devastation she’s wreaked. I’m amazed you were as civi—’ He stopped
speaking abruptly, and both girls looked at him. ‘Hang on a minute! If she thinks you had the abortion then . . . she doesn’t know she’s a grandmother.’ Tom’s voice
was quiet, menacing. Clem watched his hand ball into a fist. ‘She needs to know what she’s done.’

‘What? No!’ Clem blanched.

‘Tom,’ Stella said in a warning tone, watching Clem closely.

‘Why not? Everybody else knows now. The secret’s out. At the very least she should know the damage she’s caused; the number of lives she’s fucked up because of her
precious reputation.’ His lips pulled into a tight sneer and Clem knew he was thinking of Chiara and his own loss. He looked across at his sister. ‘You have to confront her with the
consequences of her actions.’

‘Or what?’ Stella asked, leaning in towards him as she picked up on the implied threat.

‘Or I will. I mean it. She’s not getting away with this.’

‘Tom, this is all too much, can’t you see?’ Stella said in a quiet voice. ‘It’s too soon. Clem needs time to come to terms with what’s happened. It’s
hardly appropriate to start charging around, throwing accusations about.’

‘But it’s
her
fault,’ Tom roared, causing several people to turn and stare.

‘I’m not saying it isn’t. I just don’t think now’s the ti—’

‘Tom’s right.’ Stella and Tom turned as one as Clem stood up, her cheeks unnaturally pink and her eyes too bright. ‘She needs to know.’

‘What are you going to do?’ Stella asked in alarm, her arms instantly wrapping around her belly as her blood pressure rocketed and the baby kicked.

‘Tell her the truth.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Tom and Stella said as one, rising from their seats.

Clem silenced them both with a look and they shrank back. This was between mother and daughter.

Or rather, two mothers.

Clem waited until the bell’s echoes were absorbed into the thick walls and silence rang out again, before crouching down and peering in through the letterbox. Inside,
everything in the smart hallway was still. The small hillock of letters and junk mail that had built up just inside the door had finally over-balanced, so that a few were scattered across the
floor, one or two pizza delivery flyers even making it as far as the finely tapered legs of the console table. On top of the console, Clem saw the dendrobium orchids her mother tended with such
fastidious care, drooping and yellowed, and the blue Hermès ashtray that usually held her parents’ car keys was empty. Lulu’s lead was also missing from its hook.

Clem straightened up, turning back to look along the residential street, as though she expected her parents to come walking down it towards her. But it was quiet. She found her own set of keys
in her bag and let herself in.

Even just three steps in, she could detect the air was musty and she knew the doors and windows hadn’t been opened for a couple of weeks at least. Hesitantly, she closed the door behind
her and looked around. The hall looked different again at standing height, although the strange sense of desertion was still the same. On the stairs to her left was her mother’s paisley Etro
shawl, a present from her father the Christmas before last; it was draped over the banister, as though waiting to be taken upstairs by the next person passing. Clem’s fingers touched it
softly as she passed, the movement triggering the release of a trace of her mother’s scent; Clem was surprised by the depth of emotion – misplaced nostalgia? – that crashed over
her from that one tiny gesture.

She inhaled sharply, holding on to her rage, and continued down the hall, not bothering to check herself anxiously in the mirror as she usually did. There was no one here who cared today. The
breakfast room was bright, even though it was an overcast day, and there were still a few flaky crumbs from a croissant on the pale green tablecloth at the round table. Clem frowned to see them
there. Her mother was fiercely proud of her well-kept home and crumbs were unheard of. There may as well have been a stack of porn on the table as
crumbs.
One of the chairs was still
pushed away from the table, left at a distracting angle, as though someone had got up in a hurry, and a copy of
The Times
had been left behind, folded in half in her father’s usual
way. It was dated 14 September. Today was 6 October.