Lucy Gordon - The Italian’s Baby

The end came when she decided. When she pushed him gently away from her he lay, his head turned on the pillow, unwilling to take his eyes from her.

She drew herself up in bed and sat there like a shameless nymph, letting him appreciate her glorious nakedness. She was laughing.

‘That was good,’ she said.

Failing to pick up the echo, he said, ‘Yes, it was.’

His cellphone rang. He grabbed for it, switched it off and tossed it away onto the floor. That made her laugh even more.

‘What is it?’ he asked, laughing with her but not knowing why.

‘Nothing, just a private joke.’

‘So tell me.’

‘Leave me my secrets.’

‘When will you tell me?’

She put her hands behind her head and lay back on the pillow. ‘You’ll know in time,’ she said. ‘Go to sleep.’

He did so, letting himself drift away in a blissful haze, until he fell into the deep sleep of total physical contentment.

Rebecca watched him, the laughter gone from her face. Now the look of desperation he’d briefly glimpsed was back in her eyes, and when her tears began to fall she did not wipe them away.

LUCA awoke with only one thought. He had won. Again. As always.

She had tried to leave him and couldn’t. She belonged to him again, just as he’d planned, and now there was nothing standing in the way of their future together.

He turned over, reaching for her, wanting to share warmth with her, to see in her eyes his own knowledge that they belonged together.

She wasn’t there.

He listened for the sound of the shower, but there was only silence from the bathroom. Her clothes were gone. She was gone.

He dialled her room, but the ringing went unanswered.

No matter. She’d gone out for a walk, to contemplate what had happened between them. She was planning for their future. He told himself this while his mind frantically tried to shut out his fears.

He called her cellphone, but it was switched off. Next he tried Nigel Haleworth, the hotel manager, attempting to make his voice sound casual.

‘Nigel, sorry to call so early, but I need to contact Mrs Hanley. She doesn’t seem to be in her room. Do you know when she’ll be back?’

‘Funny you should ask that,’ came Nigel’s bluff voice. ‘I’ve just had her on the line, saying she won’t be back.’

‘Of course she will, she…’ Luca checked himself on the verge of an indiscretion. Since he couldn’t say… ‘She just gave me the night of my life’, he substituted, ‘She has her job here.’

‘Not any more, apparently. She’s given in her notice and simply walked out, which is a bit inconvenient, actually. She should have let me have some notice, instead of just clearing out her things and going.’

‘Where is she now?’ His throat was tight. His voice sounded strange to his own ears.

‘Didn’t say.’

‘But suppose mail should come for her?’

‘She said she’d be in touch about that. Look, why don’t you call Danvers Jordan? They were practically engaged, so he’s bound to know. In fact, he’s probably the one who wanted her to leave. Young love, eh?’

Luca ground his teeth, but this was no moment to tell the manager that his information was out of date. He tried Rebecca’s cellphone again, but it was no real surprise to find it still switched off. He knew now that she meant business.

A knock at his door revealed a hotel messenger with mail that had been delivered for him at Reception. He sorted through the envelopes quickly, automatically setting aside those that looked important, although none of them felt important at this moment.

Then he stopped as he came to one with Rebecca’s handwriting. He suddenly seemed paralysed. He did not want to read it, in case it said what he knew it would.

Then he tore it open and read,

Luca, my dear,

Last night was a goodbye. I couldn’t bear to leave you finally without one last reminder of the best there was between us. I know now I can’t love you again. Please don’t blame me for that, but treasure the sweetest memories, as I shall.

Goodbye,

Becky

His first reaction was denial. It was impossible that he had found her and lost her, and that she had simply vanished without giving him the chance to bar her way.

He kept pain at bay by fixing on details. It chilled him to think of the smirks in Reception as she handed this in at the desk when she’d left. They would guess.

But then he studied the envelope, and saw that it had a cancelled stamp and a postmark. It had come in the mail, which meant it must have been posted yesterday.

Suddenly all the strength seemed to drain out of him as he realised that she had made love to him last night in the knowledge of that letter already written, and beyond recall.

With strength gone, he had no defence against pain, and he found himself caught up in it like a man caught in heavy waves, being smashed against rocks. There was no way out, no protection, just suffering to be endured.

At last anger came to his rescue. It was the talisman by which he silenced all other feeling and he invoked it now against his enemy.

He was waiting at Danvers Jordan’s office before the working day began.

‘Just tell me if you know where she is,’ he said dangerously as soon as he’d closed the door.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Danvers said coolly.

‘I hope, for your sake, that’s true. I’ll ask you one more time. Where is Rebecca?’

‘Look, if I knew, I’d tell you. She’s nothing to me any more. You’re welcome to her. But she seems to have finished with the pair of us.’

He barely controlled a sneer as he surveyed Luca.

‘I did what you demanded, and left you a clear field. It doesn’t seem to have done you much good, but what did you expect? Rebecca is a lady. Of course she didn’t hang around once she’d enjoyed her “bit of rough”.’

At one time Luca would have knocked him down for that, without a second thought. But now he couldn’t move. When he finally managed to get some strength into his limbs it was only enough to walk away.

He didn’t look where he was going, for his attention was fixed on the grinning clown in his head. It hooted with derisive laughter, mocking him for his weakness in swallowing an insult, and saying that it was all her fault. The habit of not doing what she wouldn’t like had returned at a fatal moment. And he was the clown.

Travelling was the best way to escape, because a woman could convince herself she was headed somewhere, instead of going around in circles.

Just who that woman was Rebecca couldn’t have said. She no longer knew herself since the day she’d discovered the worst of Luca, and then spent the night in his arms, driving him on to excess after excess, knowing that she was leaving in the dawn. She had taunted him with cold, heartless lust, and then something had driven her to pay him back in his own coin.

The woman she had once been could never have done it. The woman she had become could have done nothing else. She had told him, in his own terms, that she would not let herself be his victim. After that there was nothing to say.

She supposed he hated her now, which was probably a good thing. At last they could really be free of each other.

She discovered that anger was the best defence against grief, and now that she was alone her anger flared fiercely. He had deceived her in the worst way, creating an illusion for his own purposes. And all the time he’d sat above the scene like some infernal creator, pulling strings. The calculating look she had seen in his eyes had been the true one.

She could not forgive him, not merely because he’d manipulated her, but because he had destroyed her memories.

She knew now why she had never used the word love about their new relationship. It had been hard, shiny, superficial, and, for all its pleasure, unsatisfying. It had ended as it had deserved to end.

Once they had had so much more, and now she blamed herself for being content with so little from a man who had nothing else to give.

And nor did I, she thought. It’s too late for me too.

She headed for Europe-France, Switzerland, Italy-visiting out-of-the-way places, while the weeks passed and the days ran into each other. And all the time she knew that if she was to make a final break with the past there was one place that she must go.

She travelled everywhere by train and bus, refusing to hire a car for fear of leaving traces that Luca might pick up if he was pursuing her. She had taken some precautions to prevent herself being found, but she was still being careful. When she went to Carenna it was on an ancient bus that choked and grumbled over the roads.

The sight of the hospital evoked no memories, although it looked as though it had been standing for a hundred years, save for some building work at the rear.

There was the police station, also old, and presumably the same one where Luca had been held to keep him from her. And there was the little church where they were to have been married. Probably the priest was the same man.

But when she wandered in she discovered a young man who had been there only a year. After the first impulse to leave she found herself talking to him. He was easy to talk to, and the whole story came out.

It was two hours before she left, and then she wandered around the town for an hour, trying to come to terms with what she had just learned, and what she had seen. It changed everything. Nothing in the world looked the same in the light of the discovery she had made. But she had nobody with whom to share it.

When her inner haze cleared she found she was standing in front of the little house where she had once lived, for a brief, happy time. It was occupied now by a large family, some of whom she could see through the open door.