The Silent Wife(75)



I sat up in bed. ‘You bastard. You complete arsehole. My mother died in a car accident. My life was changed forever because of it. But because your stupid little ego had taken umbrage because I hadn’t stood up in the streets of San Gimignano and told the whole world at the top of my voice what a great big Italian stallion you were in bed, you decided to drive like a total dickhead.’ Even I flinched at my language, as though someone standing behind me was shouting it on my behalf.

Massimo would probably have looked less surprised if the woman with the frilly nightie in the portrait by our bed had suddenly popped out of the picture and taken him to task.

He opened his mouth to respond, a big blue vein throbbing on the side of his head, like an earthworm slithering along below the soil surface.

Surprise at me fighting back stalled him for a moment, but his chest was rising, air was entering his lungs, ready to be expelled in an invective designed to bring me back into line. He managed to get out: ‘Don’t you ever—’

‘Ever what? Ever swear at you? Ever voice an opinion? Ever mention the small fact that you’re a bloody great bully who gets off on intimidating his son until he’s half-choking with fright? Look at you. The big man waving his wallet about, the jovial chap with the word for everyone.’

Massimo had his hand up. ‘Shut up you stupid bitch! I’d like to see where you’d be without me. Who do you think got you the promotions at work? You’d never have made it past photocopying my reports if I hadn’t been pulling the strings. You’d still be living at home with your doolally dad while he drank the bathwater and ate the cat food.’

A voice in my head was telling me not to make the final leap. That once it was out there, my world as I knew it would not just be shaken, but smashed to smithereens. But Massimo using my dad to taunt me acted like a battering ram against the last little stick of self-preservation.

I swung my legs out of the bed. ‘Don’t give me that “You’d be nowhere without me”. It’s a miracle I’ve survived at all. Sorry if I’m not suitably grateful that the fascinating, oh so generous Massimo chose ordinary old me. But do you know what? I don’t actually feel very grateful right now. I know what you did. It’s taken me some time to work it out, but even “a thick cow” like me got there in the end. And now you’ve had your fun, I’m going to have mine. When I get up tomorrow morning I’m going to take your mother for a coffee. Sit her down with a nice little latte and explain to her how her precious firstborn was having an affair with her youngest son’s wife.’

I grounded my feet. I rubbed my lips together and swallowed, preparing to produce a scream to shatter the stained glass in the chapel below if he so much as jabbed a finger in my direction. The noise of my heart seemed to be in my ears. Energy was surging into my fingertips, all the tiny bones in my feet contracting ready for action.

He stood opposite me, chest out, fists flexing. I glanced at the door. I’d never make it. And I almost didn’t care. I was suspended in that split second between release and pain, as though a boil had been lanced and relief blocked out the stinging agony that would follow. I stared at him, throwing down the challenge, trying to dam the fear already filling the void where all those feelings I’d buried had resided. I wanted to cover my head, protect my face, from those hands.

Those tender, gentle, vicious hands.

Then Massimo buckled to the floor, tears leaching down his face, dark curls clinging to his hairline in damp tendrils.

‘I’m so sorry.’





35





LARA




I felt as though I’d been asleep for about thirty seconds when I woke up to find Sandro standing over me, hissing ‘Mum’ and shooting frightened glances at Massimo. I hauled myself out of bed, looking at the back of Massimo’s head on the pillow, the sheet obscuring his face. Would this really be the last time that I woke up next to him? All that life before, snapped off on its stalk, one random day?

I didn’t have to ask what Sandro’s problem was. I knew from the look on his face. Shame. Humiliation. ‘I’ll come and help you. Let me just put some clothes on.’ I crept out, leaving the door ajar, my eyes watering as the early morning sunlight bounced up off the cobbles.

I wrinkled my nose as I walked into his room and started stripping the bed. ‘Don’t worry. There’s a laundry by the kitchen. I’ll pop these in now and no one will know.’

‘Don’t tell Daddy, will you? Or Sam and Francesca? They already think I’m a baby.’

‘Come here.’ I hugged him to me, closing my gritty eyes and resting my face on his head. ‘You’ll grow out of it. It’s just taking a bit longer for you. We all do things at different times – some children walk and talk long after everyone else, some stop wetting the bed late – we all get there in the end. But I wouldn’t swap you for anyone in the world.’

‘Mum?’

‘Yes?’ I said, balling up the sheets.

‘Why were you swearing at Daddy last night?’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, my mind recoiling from the idea that Sandro had heard any of that conversation.

‘I wet the bed before you’d gone to sleep but then I heard you arguing, so I didn’t come in.’

‘Have you been sleeping in a wet bed all night?’

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