A Shadow of Guilt(14)

Gio shrugged minutely. ‘Don’t worry about it, it can look scary.’

‘Where did you learn to do that?’

A bleakness entered Gio and he didn’t say, I learnt how to do it after Mario died, when I couldn’t save him, or help him. Instead he just said lightly, ‘I run a business—I insist that all my staff have basic first aid training, including myself.’ Gio’s experience was a bit more than just in first aid, he’d actually done a paramedic training course. The way he’d felt so helpless next to Mario’s inert body had forged within him a strong desire never to feel that helpless again. The awful thing was that Mario had been alive for a while, but Gio hadn’t known how to keep him alive. And he’d died in Gio’s arms before the medics had arrived.

‘I … thank you.’

Gio winced. ‘You don’t have to say anything.’

The rest of the journey was made in silence and when they got to the hospital Gio pushed down the awful sense of déjà vu. The night of Mario’s accident, he’d hoped against hope that somehow miraculously they’d brought Mario back to life but when he’d got there he’d seen the small huddle of Valentina with her parents, crying. Valentina had rushed at him with her fists flying. ‘I knew something would happen. You shouldn’t have taken him out. He wouldn’t have gone if you’d not asked him….’

The memory faded, to be replaced now by the frantic chaos of the emergency room. Valentina went and asked at the desk and then, with a quick glance at Gio, who just nodded at her, she disappeared with a nurse.

Gio made a phone call like an automaton to one of his staff to come and switch his impractical sports car for something more practical. It was shortly after that had been delivered when he saw the bowed figure of Valentina’s mother, with Valentina all but holding her up. Please God, he prayed silently.

But when they got close Valentina looked at him and smiled tiredly. ‘He’s stable. It was a massive heart attack and the doctor said if he hadn’t been given CPR he wouldn’t have made it.’

Gio felt uncomfortable and just said, ‘I have a car outside, let me take you home.’

Valentina’s mother acknowledged Gio but to his relief she didn’t seem too upset to see him there, or surprised. He solicitously helped them into the jeep that had been delivered and then Valentina said, ‘You can take us to my mother’s. I’ll stay with her tonight.’

When Gio pulled up outside the house again he jumped out to help Valentina’s mother. At the door she stopped and looked up at him. ‘Thank you, Gio.’

He looked into her lined and careworn face and couldn’t see anything but tired gratitude. She patted his hand and then went inside the house. When Valentina was about to pass him he stopped her with a hand on her arm. She looked at him and he had to curb his response to her.

‘If you need anything. anything at all, you know where to find me. I mean it, Valentina.’

She started to say, ‘I …’ and then she stopped and said, ‘OK.’ And then she went inside and closed the door.

A week after he’d left Valentina at her mother’s house, Gio was trying not to think of her and was looking at a picture in the local newspaper. A huge headline was proclaiming: Scandals in the Corretti Family! There was a salacious rumour that the runaway bride had actually run away with his older brother Matteo after the non-wedding. And it had been revealed that his cousin, Rosa, was not actually his cousin but another half-sister, thanks to an affair between his aunt Carmela and his father.

Gio’s mouth twisted in disgust. He wanted nothing to do with the sordid details of these stories. He did feel a twinge of sympathy for Rosa, who had always been quite sweet to him on the rare occasions they’d met. He could imagine that this must be devastating news to deal with….

Gio’s phone rang at that moment and it was a number he didn’t recognise. Unconsciously his insides tensed. He threw down the paper and picked the phone up. ‘Pronto?’

There was nothing for a few seconds and then her voice came down the line. ‘It’s me.’

Gio’s belly tightened. Carefully he said, ‘How is your father?’

Valentina sounded weary. ‘He’s doing OK, still in hospital, but it looks like he needs a major bypass operation.’

There was another long silence and then, ‘Gio … I …’

Gio clutched the phone, suddenly feeling panicky. If she hangs up … ‘Go on, Valentina, what is it?’