‘You don’t need to invent excuses,’ she’d told him. ‘I get quite lonely and bored here when Gaetano’s away. I would welcome some company.’
No, that couldn’t be right. She would never have been so forward, so obvious. Not the first time, anyway. And even if she had, he would never have taken her up on it, fearing some disgrace that could ruin his career for ever. So how had it all begun?
Of one thing she was sure. Their initial meeting, outwardly unexceptionable, had been at the regiment’s annual dinner and ball, an occasion that could hardly have been more public. The colonel had naturally introduced some of his ‘stable’, as he called them, to his much younger wife, and then encouraged them — under the circumstances, practically ordered them — to dance with her. His legs were already giving him hell, the merest intimations of the torment to come later, when they’d had to have the chair lift installed at the villa. At that stage Gaetano could still stand, walk and, when required, march without undue difficulty, but he couldn’t have danced with any pleasure, even if he’d wanted to. As it happened he didn’t, but neither did he want Claudia to be left seated with him, a sad wallflower, while the other wives tripped the light fantastic and engaged in a bit of mild and utterly harmless flirtation.
Lieutenant Ferrero had taken up his duties with an alacrity which Claudia had initially ascribed to the young man’s desire to ingratiate himself with his commanding officer. They had performed a polka, a gavotte and a foxtrot together before Leonardo relinquished her to one of his fellow officers. She had wanted him immediately, of course, and equally immediately dismissed the thought. Quite apart from anything else, she was well aware of being about ten years his senior. As a military city of long standing, Verona had more than its share of ‘barracks blowflies’, as they were known. Lieutenant Ferrero would have had no difficulty in getting his needs attended to quickly, safely and cheaply.
But at the end of the evening he had returned, and in a subtly different manner requested Claudia’s company for the last dance, a slow waltz. She had been wearing a silk shawl, but the hall was so hot and stuffy now that she removed it, making the full effect of her very low-cut dress visible for the first time.
As soon as the music started, she became aware that something was wrong. Earlier, Leonardo had been an exemplary partner, moving gracefully, always dead on the beat, never leading aggressively nor hanging behind. Now he seemed to have turned slightly spastic. His body was bent at an odd angle, and his movements seemed gauche and inhibited. He might almost have been Gaetano, on the few occasions when she had managed to tempt him on to the dance floor.
When she tightened her arm on her partner’s back, pulling him towards her, trying to straighten him up, the reason for his awkwardness became apparent: a massive erection that even his military-issue underpants were barely able to restrain. Their eyes met and locked. Das Blick, her mother had told her once. That was where love began. All it took was that unfakeable, petrifying look, and you were lost.
Nevertheless, as yet nothing had in fact been lost. They remained the only people present who were aware of what had happened. At the conclusion of the dance, Leonardo, now making no attempt to conceal his predicament from her, had very correctly returned her to her husband’s side without a word spoken, bidden them both goodnight and left with his fellow officers. Then, ten days later, he had appeared uninvited at the villa, supposedly to return some books. Nothing illicit had occurred at that meeting either. Gaetano had been abroad, but the servants were very much in evidence and Claudia was expecting a woman friend for dinner that evening.
So how had the affair itself begun? Another meeting at the villa had been arranged, that much was certain. And it must have been done in person, face to face, before Leonardo caught the train back to Verona that first time. There were no mobile phones in those days. All calls to the barracks went through the switchboard, and as desperate as she had been, Claudia would never have risked putting anything in writing. The most insistent of the versions that presented themselves to her now had it that she had invited him — on the front step of the villa, completely out of the blue, dismayed by the imminent prospect of his physical absence — to return the following Wednesday. She might have told him that she was having some friends over for the day, an interesting and influential couple who might well prove helpful to his career. She had certainly known that her husband would be attending a two- day meeting at the Defence Ministry in Rome to report on the NATO conference.
She had given the servants those two days off, explaining that in her husband’s absence she would be returning to Verona. There was still the risk of snooping neighbours, of chance encounters in the village, even of Gaetano’s unannounced return due to illness or a cancellation. In short, she had gone slightly mad, deranged not so much by the sexual prospects in store, although that was a powerful drug, as by an irresistible sensation that the contingent chaos of everyday life was finally cohering into a meaningful narrative that she had to follow, no matter where it might lead.
Yes, but how had it all begun?
However the invitation had been phrased, Leonardo had come, and to the tradesmen’s entrance at the side of the villa, which Claudia had left open. She explained this by saying that it was the servants’ day off and that she would be entertaining her guests by the pool in the garden and might not hear the doorbell. In reality it had been to minimize the possibility of his being seen by prying eyes.
She had been swimming topless in the pool when he arrived, and for a moment she thought she had been too brazen and ruined everything. Confused by her nudity and the absence of any other people, Leonardo looked as though he was about to bolt at any moment. When she picked up the towel she had left at the edge of the pool, wrapped it around her torso and climbed out, he had accepted with a brief nod her story about how the other couple had cancelled at the last moment for family reasons. She had calmed him down by putting her top back on and then producing a man’s swimsuit from the wicker chest where the towels were kept and insisting that he go into the house and put it on. She kept a variety of spare suits for visitors, she said, in case they had neglected to bring their own. In reality, the suit was Gaetano’s.
Leonardo had obeyed her instructions, like the polite young man he was. When he emerged from the villa, Claudia had to fight very hard against her instinct to stare shamelessly at the swimsuit, so very much more interesting did it appear than when worn by her husband. They both went into the water and swam energetically for some time, pretending to each other and to themselves that this was the point of the exercise. Then they emerged, rubbed themselves roughly dry, and lay down side by side on the large beach towels spread out in the sun.
After a while, Claudia had sat up and started applying Ambre Solaire to all the bits of her that she could reach, chattering on the whole time about the extreme sensitivity of her skin and the potentially disastrous effects of the August sun. She had then turned over and asked Leonardo to spread some of the fragrant bronze oil on her back, please. Oh, and just undo the strap of my top, would you, so as not to leave a white strip on the tan. She might even have told him to rub her harder to make sure that the oil penetrated the skin deeply, or some such nonsense. It had been like revisiting her adolescence, but with all the knowledge and authority of her current position. Which she had used quite mercilessly. She wouldn’t have put anything past her.