The Silent Wife(78)
Sandro’s eyes opened. ‘Mummy?’
I took a breath. My lungs sucked greedily on the air as though my airways had hibernated without me noticing. ‘I’m here, darling. I think you fell into the pool. But Daddy saved you. You’re all right now.’
The distant sound of a siren, drawing closer.
Sandro blinking a few times, screwing his eyes up. His voice, hoarse as though he had tonsillitis, scraped out. ‘I didn’t fall in, Mummy. I tried to swim to make Daddy happy.’
36
MAGGIE
The last few days of the holiday bore no resemblance to the edgy bear-pit moments that had preceded it. Massimo displayed a tenderness with Sandro I found so moving that my eyes prickled every time I saw them together. Massimo had always been restless, a man of movement, in and out of the pool, off to the shops, poking about in the garden, finding basil and rosemary to go with lunch. Now, instead of the pool king, he was the champion of Uno tournaments, Sandro’s favourite game. Both Francesca and Sam pronounced it ‘too silly, too young’ but were soon begging to join in, drawn to the way Massimo made everything sound so much fun.
Since the near-drowning experience, Sandro had been like a flower opening under time-lapse photography, a tight bud relaxing its protective layers to expose the colourful petals within.
I nudged Lara next to me on the sunbed. ‘Maybe some good has come out of it,’ I said, indicating Sandro’s little face, shining with pleasure as he slapped down his last card.
She nodded. ‘I think it was a lesson to us all. Because he doesn’t say very much, I don’t think we realised how much he was absorbing. Without meaning to, we’d made him feel a failure. It’s really upset Massimo because he feels responsible.’
It was a testament to Lara’s generosity of spirit that she hadn’t felt the need to play the blame game. I hoped I wouldn’t have been that person shaking my husband awake in the middle of the night to relive the horror of what nearly happened and finishing with ‘And it would have been all your fault!’ I was still waking up myself, images of Sandro’s body, lying at an unnatural angle by the pool, kept creeping into the night-time hours.
God knows which emotions and pictures were on a never-ending loop in Massimo and Lara’s minds. Lara kept praising Massimo’s quick action – ‘Thank God he was there. I was just a jelly. Pathetic. I don’t know whether I’d have had the strength to get him out.’
‘Don’t underestimate yourself. Of course you would, if Massimo hadn’t been there,’ I said.
‘I’m not so sure. I would have gone to pieces completely. Thank God I never had to find out. It was partly my fault anyway. I should have been far more forceful about telling Sandro to stay away from the pool when there were no adults around. Because he was scared of the water, it never occurred to me he would go anywhere near it when I wasn’t there.’ Her voice raised a little, emotion clouding her words.
Massimo threw down his cards and grabbed Sandro’s arm, raising it above his head. ‘I officially proclaim you the Uno champion of Castello della Limonaia!’ Sandro’s face creased into a big smile.
Then Massimo knelt down by Lara and reached for her hand. ‘Are you all right, darling? Will you do me the honour of walking round the garden with me? Maggie, would you keep an eye on Sandro for us?’
Lara hesitated.
‘Go on. I won’t even blink until you come back,’ I said, sounding more confident than I felt. As Massimo pulled her to her feet, I felt weighed down by what seemed a crushing responsibility of keeping three kids alive for the next half an hour. I’d never been one for helicoptering around Sam as long as I knew roughly where he was, but now I felt as though I wanted to attach him to me with a pair of toddler reins. I found myself stressing about things I’d never given a hoot about before, like throwing up grapes in the air and catching them in his mouth, somersaulting off the side of the pool, swimming straight after lunch. And every time Francesca cartwheeled off the side into the pool, I had visions of her skull smashing on the concrete edge, making my heart lurch.
With a new intensity, I appreciated having a husband to share my worries with. Someone to put his hand out in the middle of the night and say, ‘I can feel you fidgeting. Snuggle up.’ Someone who didn’t make me feel stupid and attention-seeking for not being able to stop crying, even when Lara and Massimo got back from the hospital with an all-clear for Sandro, Massimo barely visible behind an enormous bunch of flowers for Mum.
Despite the fact that Sandro owed his life to her raising the alarm, she’d brushed off all thanks and praise. ‘Get off with you! I’d have been a darned sight more useful if I’d been able to swim meself. Good job Massimo spends so much time down the gym, ran like the wind he did.’
I prayed she’d be gracious about the flowers. And in deference to the seriousness of the day, the sense that our whole lives could have turned on a sixpence, she managed not to do her usual, ‘What a waste of money. Poor things. I prefer to see them growing in gardens rather than stuck in a vase.’
But the days had definitely taken on a more mellow feel with everyone being kind to each other. I drifted down to dinner without worrying whether Anna would pick on Mum for saying, ‘My most beautifullest grandson’ and launch into a boring explanation about superlatives, which Mum would wave away with ‘Oh who cares about superla-things. You know what I’m on about, so what does it matter?’