The Silent Wife(11)

‘Surely not! A little mouse like you!’ Mum said. ‘Mind you, anyone would seem like they were making a right racket after their little boy. Never seen a child so quiet.’

I was just about to ask her what she knew about Lara when we heard the front door open. I wiped my hands on a tea towel. ‘That was quick,’ I whispered to Mum.

It didn’t seem right to fly out into the hallway and say, ‘How did you get on?’ all cheery, as though they’d been on a little outing with tea and scones, so I waited in the kitchen.

I heard footsteps clattering upstairs, then Nico came in, his cheeks red with cold, his face pinched and weary.

‘Are you okay? Where are the others?’

‘Still there. Francesca had a meltdown at the entrance to the cemetery, started stamping on the roses and crying.’ He sighed. ‘She just can’t accept Caitlin’s not coming back. I thought it would help her but maybe it’s still too soon.’

Conscious of my mother looking at me as though I should be whipping out some wifely magic to make everything better, I hugged him. As he sagged into my shoulder, I wondered whether I’d ever stop being the one who came ‘next’, if ‘Nico and Maggie’ would trip off people’s tongues in the same way that ‘Nico and Caitlin’ had.

‘Shall I go up and find Francesca?’ Mum asked. If anyone could talk round a hysterical child, Mum could.

Nico nodded gratefully, as though he was clean out of coping. As Mum went out of the kitchen, Nico said, ‘This is bloody awful. I don’t know what to do. I feel as though she’s stuck in no man’s land. Caitlin would have known how to handle this; she was much better at all this stuff.’

Yet again my stomach lurched as though praise for Caitlin was criticism for me. Deep down I knew Nico was just raw with frustration that he couldn’t help his daughter. But when I’d imagined our lives together, I’d seen myself as the friend, the one Francesca would confide in, the bridge between her and her dad, helping Nico understand the mind of a teenage girl. Instead, I was an enemy to barge out the way so that Francesca could claw her way back to the status quo, trapping her and Nico in a constant homage to Caitlin.

Nico disappeared upstairs. I imagined him lurking outside Francesca’s bedroom, waiting to see if Mum could work her magic.

I was stopped from plunging into even murkier misery by the arrival of the other Farinellis.

Massimo was first into the kitchen, rubbing his hands. He came bundling up to me, threw his arm round my shoulder and in an undertone asked, ‘Francesca all right?’

I grimaced. ‘Mum and Nico are upstairs with her now.’

He nodded. ‘It will get better, you know.’

I bloody hoped he was right.

He sniffed the air. ‘Smells good in here. Vegetable soup? Brilliant. We’re ready for something hot. It was freezing at the cemetery.’

I was so grateful to Massimo for acknowledging I had something to bring to the party. ‘It won’t be long. Have a seat and I’ll make some tea,’ I said, feeling embarrassed, as though I had no right to be welcoming people into Nico’s house.

‘I tell you what – I’ll pop next door and fetch some wine. I think everyone could do with a little pick-me-up,’ he said.

I hovered in front of the kettle, not wanting to ignore his offer but afraid of being too enthusiastic and coming across as graspy or inhospitable. The wine rack in the sitting room was full but I wouldn’t know if I was uncorking a valuable vintage or insulting him with a bottle of plonk destined for a beef stew. ‘If you just hang on a mo, Nico has got plenty of wine, he’ll sort you out when he comes down.’

Massimo smiled, a glittering grin, so like his brother’s but without the hint of reserve that tempered Nico’s. ‘No worries, you save that for another day. I’ve got plenty. Do you like Picpoul?’

I wasn’t sure whether we were still on wine or had switched to a discussion about a new form of snooker. I was trying to decide between ‘I like any white wine’ and ‘I’m a dab hand at bar billiards’, when I was saved from answering by Anna sweeping in with Lara and Sandro. As I stepped forward to welcome them, Anna was already handing me her trench coat without even bothering to say hello. I half-expected her to wait for a cloakroom ticket.

I reminded myself Nico had enough to deal with without a second wife showdown, so I muttered some juicy rude words to myself and did a curtsey in the coat cupboard while flicking the Vs in the direction of where I imagined she was standing.

When I emerged from my secret swearfest, Nico and Mum were coming down with Francesca. The desolation on her face made me call into question the wisdom of marking anniversaries with miserable pilgrimages to gravesides. No wonder the poor girl had had a meltdown. Since I’d read that David Bowie didn’t have a funeral, I’d resolved to instruct Sam to donate my body to medical science and to celebrate random memories of me as they popped up without the stress of a big gloomy date rolling round every year.

I dithered between racing over to her to see if she was all right and not wanting to look as though I thought I could replace her mother in any way. Very softly, I said, ‘Hot chocolate, Francesca?’

She nodded.

Nico mouthed, ‘Thank you.’

I delegated the task to Mum then called Sam to fetch Sandro. He wasn’t as keen on Sandro coming round to us, as the real pull for him was Sandro’s Scalextric. And watching Sandro make his way up the stairs, sliding shyly along the wall, I understood. It was astonishing how little of his dad’s exuberance he’d inherited, a pastel watercolour of the bold and bright outline of Massimo.