‘I’ll take you to the airport,’ he repeated obstinately.

The journey was a surreal experience. They travelled mostly in silence, and when they spoke it was about mundane matters-her ticket, her luggage.

At Naples Airport he came inside with her, watching as she checked in her luggage.

‘I’m a bit late for the plane,’ she said, looking anxiously at the board. ‘I should go.’

‘Yes, you’ll have to hurry. By the way-about the series-of course I can’t be in it.’

‘I suppose not.’

‘But you’ll find another frontman,’ he said coolly. ‘They’re ten a penny.’

Then, without warning, he broke.

‘I can’t stay angry with you,’ he whispered. ‘Della, for pity’s sake, forget everything-forget what I’ve said-what you’ve said. None of it matters. Let’s put all this behind us and love each other as we did before.’

She shook her head violently.

‘I’ll always love you,’ she said. ‘But it was only a dream-’

‘And you can let it go just like that? Did it mean so little to you?’

‘Don’t,’ she said, closing her eyes. ‘You’ll never know what it meant to me. But we can’t build a life on it, and one day you’ll know I was right.’

He grasped her hand so hard that it hurt.

‘But you’re not right. You’re taking us to disaster and you can’t see it. Della, I’ll beg you one last time-don’t do this to us both.’

‘This is the final call…’

‘No,’ he said fiercely, taking hold of her. ‘I won’t let you go. You’re staying with me.’

She didn’t answer in words, just shook her head in dumb misery, and at last he released her with a gesture of despair. She walked through the gate, meaning to go on without looking back. But at the last minute she had to know if he was still there, and turned slowly.

The crowd was building up, other faces passing in front of his. But she could just make him out, watching her until the very last moment, motionless, like a man whose life was ebbing away, until the crowd moved again and she could no longer see him.

CHAPTER NINE

DELLA took off from Naples in sunshine and landed in England in pouring rain. The perfect comment on her situation, she thought, if you were of a dramatic turn of mind.

Sol was at the airport, relieved that she had arrived to sort out his problems.

‘Good to have you back, Mum,’ he said, hugging her.

They’d had this conversation before, and her next line was, It’s lovely to be back, darling.

But this time the words wouldn’t come, and she was glad to hurry to the waiting taxi.

As they reached the houseboat Sol said, ‘I’ve done some cleaning up, so that it’s perfect for you.’

‘You’ve done some cleaning up?’ she queried.

‘Jackie helped me a bit,’ he conceded.

‘Hmm!’

The place was spotless, which convinced her that this was mostly her secretary’s work, but she let the subject drop. Sol was on his best behaviour-carrying her bags into the bedroom, telling her to sit down, making her coffee.

‘The situation must be pretty bad to make you such a perfect gentleman,’ she said, slightly amused despite her unhappiness.

‘I just don’t know what to think. What am I going to do with a baby?’

‘I thought the idea was for me to arrange everything?’

‘You’re wonderful.’ He kissed her cheek.

‘Sure I am,’ she said wryly.

With such domestic diversions she was able to fend off reality for a while. Even when she went to bed and lay thinking of Carlo she fell mercifully asleep within a few minutes. She began to think she might be let off lightly.

She discovered otherwise the following morning, when she awoke at dawn and went on deck to watch the sun come up over the river. It was a mistake. She found herself reliving the day they’d met when she’d told Carlo about this scene.

‘You have to catch the moment because it vanishes so quickly.’

She’d said that, meaning the magic of dawn on the water, not knowing how perfectly the words would apply to their brief time together. The moment had come and gone, vanishing for ever, uncaught.

Now the memory would always be there, waiting for her with every dawn.

She went quickly back inside.

Nobody in the Rinucci family thought it strange that Della should need to return to England for a while. It took time for it to dawn on them that she wasn’t coming back. Carlo did not encourage questions. Only to Hope did he go as far as to say, ‘It could never have worked, Mamma, and we both knew it. Our careers wouldn’t have fitted together.’

‘Your careers?’ Hope echoed, disbelieving.

‘Of course,’ he said lightly. ‘That was always going to be a problem.’

‘Can’t you tell me the truth, my son?’

He sighed and gave up the pretence. ‘It was the age-gap. She made so much of it that-it was really an excuse. She didn’t want me.’

‘She rejected you? Rubbish!’

He managed to laugh at that.

‘Unbelievable, isn’t it?’ he asked with a hint of teasing. ‘There’s actually a woman in the world who thinks I’m not up to standard.’

‘Well, she must be the only one,’ Hope declared, staunchly loyal. ‘She’s mad, and you’re better off without her.’

‘Yes, Mamma, if you say so.’

‘Don’t you take that tone with me,’ she snapped.

‘What tone?’

‘Meek and mild. I know what it means.’

It meant that inwardly he had vanished to a place nobody could reach. Carlo, so soft-spoken and easygoing on the surface, had another self that he visited rarely and only he knew about.

Hope glared at her son, furious with him, with Della, with the world that had dared allow her darling to be hurt.

That night she confided in her husband.

‘But it’s what you wanted,’ Toni protested. ‘You never thought she was good enough for him.’

‘But I meant him to reject her,’ Hope said, outraged.

‘He was never going to do that,’ said Toni, who saw more than he said.

As if to allay their fears, Carlo began to spend more time at the villa, often staying overnight, sometimes bringing female company, but always sending the ladies away in taxis. He seemed to become his old self, laughing, flirting, always ready for a party. And the more he enjoyed himself, the more Hope’s fears grew.

Once she asked him, ‘Have you heard from her?’

‘Not a word. What is there to say?’

‘That project you were working on-?’

‘Nothing will come of that now.’

‘I thought-if it caused you to see each other again, then maybe…’ She trailed off, not sure what she’d hoped for, but ready to accept anything that would make him happy.

‘Mamma, there’s no point in talking about it. It’s over. Let’s forget it.’

‘Will you forget, my son?’ Hope asked pointedly.

He smiled faintly and shook his head.

‘No, I never will. But that’s because I’m under a special kind of curse. Forgetfulness would be a blessing, but I’ll never have it, and I just have to accept that.’

Hope nodded. She, too, knew about that curse. She never spoke of it, but now she wondered if her youngest child had suspected her secret. Part of her still thought of him as the baby of the family, but now she saw that this man had a painful wisdom that he, too, kept to himself.

‘Can you accept it?’ she asked quietly.

‘I can manage. And I’m damned if I’ll make everyone else suffer by going around in a black cloud. We’ve got a lot of good news coming in this family. Justin’s twins, for a start.’

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘And yet…’ She paused as she came to something that was hard to say.

‘What is it?’

‘I see you empty and hurting inside, and I wonder how much of it is my fault.’

‘How can any of it be your fault?’

‘I didn’t welcome her as perhaps I might have done,’ she forced herself to say. ‘She wasn’t what I wanted for you. Oh, I said and did all the right things. But she knew I was forcing myself, to conceal a lack of warmth inside. My son, did I drive her away and ruin your life?’

‘Of course not,’ he said, honestly puzzled. ‘Mamma, you don’t know how it was between us. Nobody could have driven her away from me-not if she didn’t want to go. We had our world, and it was everything. Except that I spoiled it by-’ there was a faint tremor in his voice ‘-by not being the man she wanted.’

‘But-?’

‘Try to understand this, and then never let us speak of it again. It wasn’t your fault, or anyone else’s except mine. In her eyes I just don’t measure up. That’s all there is to it.’

She understood. He was telling her, gently, that even she was irrelevant when set against his love. His eyes were kind, softening the hint of rejection, but she had no doubt that he meant it.

For a moment she hated Della with a ferocity that shocked her. All this might have been hers, and she’d tossed it away, breaking his heart, abandoning him in an endless desert.

But the man he had become understood even this, and said quietly, ‘Don’t hate her, Mamma. For my sake.’

‘Very well, I won’t. In fact, I think you should go to England. Whatever is wrong between you put it right-if that’s the only thing that will make you happy.’

It was a bad thing to say. Carlo’s face was hard and set.

‘Go after her?’ he echoed. ‘Beg from a woman who’s turned me down as not up to standard? What do you think I am?’

‘My dear, don’t let your pride get in the way.’

He shrugged and made a wry face.

‘Let a man keep his pride. It matters.’

‘Well, can’t I help? If I talked to her-’

She stopped before the anger that flashed in his eyes.

‘Never even think of such a thing. Not even for a moment. Do you hear me, Mamma?’

‘Yes,’ she faltered. ‘I won’t do anything you don’t want.’

For a moment she had glimpsed the fierce will inside him, and it had almost frightened her.