The Silent Wife(29)

Lara glanced towards the hallway, then whispered, ‘Could you not mention the whole dog thing to Massimo? He’s so stressed at work at the moment, I don’t want him to feel I can’t cope with everything at home when he’s working so hard.’

I didn’t subscribe to all this bollocky ‘Mustn’t bother the big man with domestic detail’ especially when the ‘domestic detail’ had big snarling, snapping teeth. And Massimo didn’t look anywhere near as knackered strolling in from his accountant’s office at six-fifteen, as Nico did, bent and buckled from shifting stone statues in the garden centre at eight. But Lara looked so strung out that I nodded. ‘Okay, but you really ought to let him know how hard you’re finding it to cope with the dog. He’d be horrified if he knew.’

Lara didn’t respond for a second. Then she brightened. ‘I’m sure Lupo will grow out of this naughty phase. I never leave him with Sandro on his own. He only got into the garden today because he jumped over the stable door. And as Sandro matures a bit, he won’t get so frightened by everything. The last thing I need is Anna hearing what happened. She’ll inevitably find a way to make Lupo having a go at Sandro some terrible failing on my part.’

Then she looked startled, as though an opinion had swooped out of her mouth before she’d had a chance to bleach it into a bland statement of nothingness.

I wanted to cheer. It was one of the few occasions since I’d known her that she’d articulated something real and true. I’d only had a couple of years of bracing myself every time Anna whirled in with her opinions. They began innocently enough, little crumbs of observation, which then puffed up like carrier bags caught in the wind, whirling round the room, carrying clouds of criticism. Lara had had the benefit of her morale-crushing observations for nearly a decade and from a much younger, more vulnerable age. I was about to dig a little deeper – not least to find out if Anna had a key to their house as well – when Massimo trotted back in, bringing a waft of aftershave with him. In a pale green open-necked shirt, he looked as though he’d just stepped off a yacht moored in Sardinia. Then the moment was lost as Lara turned away, busying herself with arranging biscuits on a pretty plate, while Massimo opened the French windows and called in the dog.

As Lupo dashed in to greet him, Lara positioned herself behind the bar stools. Christ, if a dog frightened me that much, I’d have it down the rescue centre before you could say ‘Get in your basket’. Massimo barked a quick ‘lie’ at Lupo and he immediately dropped to the floor, head down, as though he spent the days meekly waiting for someone to remember he needed feeding.

‘So what have you been up to today?’ Massimo asked, as Lupo rolled onto his back.

Lara darted a look at me and rushed in with, ‘This and that. Sandro’s been playing on the trampoline. Gave me a little bit of time to get shipshape upstairs.’

Watching Lara was like looking at Sudoku without any numbers in the grid. I knew there was a puzzle to solve but I was damned if I could see where to start. Massimo was so open and friendly, whereas Lara always gave the impression she was trying not to deplete her daily word count. I’d hate to be so riddled with insecurities that I couldn’t even be honest with my own husband. Though it was unlikely Sam was going to meet a sticky end because I was too absorbed in housework. Sewing maybe, but dusting and hoovering, definitely not.

They were a funny lot, these Farinellis.





14





MAGGIE




Even without the prospect of Anna and Massimo coming over to discuss holiday plans for the ‘Farinelli fortnight’, the evening had got off to a bad start. Francesca had made some jewellery in her design class at school and wanted the gold box to display it in.

I hesitated. ‘Not quite sure where I put it. I think it’s too valuable to take to school anyway.’

She stood there, hands on her hips, with that teenage expectation that I’d immediately rush to look for it. To be fair, whenever Francesca showed any signs of wanting anything from me, I did hop to it. She probably couldn’t understand why I carried on peeling potatoes, when normally I’d fling down the knife and run around like a wind-up toy, so grateful for the little promise of connection.

I couldn’t think how to put her off. ‘Just let me finish making dinner and then I’ll see if I can find it.’ With every slice of the knife, my mind darted about, wondering what to do for the best. Tell her I’d accidentally thrown it away? Mislaid it? Chuck out all the keepsakes and mementoes and press the padded cushion tight into the box and hope she’d never find the inscription?

We’d had a couple of months of relative peace. Francesca wasn’t yet rushing to hug me goodnight but sometimes she sat on a stool in the kitchen even when Nico was still at work and told me about something that had happened at school or showed me a YouTube video she found funny. But at least the stomping about slamming doors seemed to be a thing of the past and I was determined that the disappearance of a bloody box wasn’t going to screw that up for me.

I was still scrabbling round for a solution when Anna and Massimo rang the bell. Long before we got married, when I was still waiting for Nico to discover that although I made him laugh, I wasn’t a ‘keeper’, he’d spoken about the family tradition of taking over the same castle in the Tuscan countryside for the first two weeks of August every year. I’d envied him. That closeness, the lively dinners under the stars, the banter bouncing between the sun loungers, the raucous races in the swimming pool. I’d felt ashamed of my fleeting comparison with the four days Mum, Sam and I had managed two years ago, in a caravan on the Isle of Sheppey, sleeping in beds barely wider than a shelf, turning on the gas hob to keep warm.