‘Is he a killer?’ she says. The question appals her.
‘I don’t know. He could be.’
‘Does Marcie know?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘How… how ever did you come to know him?’
‘I… he…’ Boyd murmurs these two words and then goes silent. He shakes his head, and there are tears in his eyes.
Clare doesn’t know how to feel, but he looks so dejected that she goes to sit beside him, and leans her face against his shoulder.
‘These people… once they’ve got your name, you see… once they know who you are, and how they can make use of you, then they’ll use any means to do so. They threaten what’s dear to you…’
‘He’s threatened you?’ she says, and Boyd nods. ‘That’s why when he wanted Pip and me to come out, for Marcie, you agreed?’
‘Yes. I did everything I could to dissuade him, and I said several times that I wouldn’t take the commission. I didn’t want anything more to do with him, but… he insisted.’ Boyd shakes his head, perplexed. ‘He insisted, and I’m a coward, Clare. He swears that this will be the last time, and I… I’ve seen what he can do. He knows where I work, so he could find out where we live, I’m sure of it. I just couldn’t risk alienating him. I’m so sorry. You must believe how sorry I am.’
‘Jesus Christ, Boyd!’ For a moment Clare almost laughs at the absurdity of it – avuncular Leandro, with his skittish, ebullient wife. ‘She can’t know – Marcie can’t know. I can’t believe it.’
‘Perhaps you’re right. She doesn’t seem… the type.’
‘So then, perhaps he has left it all behind him?’ Clare suggests. ‘Now that he has Marcie, and now that he’s come home to Gioia… Perhaps whatever he did in New York made him rich enough.’
‘I never met a rich man who didn’t want to be richer still,’ says Boyd, and shakes his head. ‘Please, please do nothing to test him, Clare. Promise me!’ He takes her hand and squeezes it hard, and she winces.
‘I promise.’ She takes a deep breath in and smells that sharp, sour scent, and realises now that it’s the smell of her husband’s fear. ‘But how does he even know you, Boyd? Why would he want you, of all people, to come to Italy and design his wretched new façade?’
‘I think…’ Boyd shakes his head and looks across at her with his eyes still swimming. ‘Christ, Clare, I think he just really liked the building I designed in New York.’
They look at one another and then laugh, just for a second. An incredulous laugh, brought on by nerves and adrenalin. It soon passes, and Boyd shakes his head again. ‘It’s really not funny at all, is it?’ he says.
‘Not one bit,’ Clare agrees.
‘What should I have done differently? Tell me. What would you have done?’ he says. Clare stands up, feeling light, alert, ready for violence. The feeling is alien to her, and it’s troubling but electric too; she feels very alive. She goes over to the window and looks out at the flat ground, silver in the moonlight, and feels so far from everything she knows that she could be on Mars. Just days ago she would have reassured him, even if the words had felt like cotton wool in her mouth. Now, that urge is gone.
‘What would I have done?’ She folds her arms, running her fingers over the rough gooseflesh of them. ‘I’ve have told him to hang from his damned façade,’ she says. ‘I would. But you didn’t say that. And here we are, you and I and Pip, stuck in a place where some kind of civil war is breaking out, in the house of a mobster and a show girl, and entirely at their disposal. What could possibly be wrong?’ She says it lightly but there’s no more laughter, no more smiles.
‘You’re different, Clare… what’s happened? What’s changed?’ says Boyd.
‘I woke up,’ she says softly.
After a long pause she turns to the bed, and climbs in on her side. ‘We’d better hope he likes your designs, or perhaps it’ll be curtains for us.’ Boyd frowns at this and lies down beside her, not trying to touch her. He leaves the light on as if they might talk more, but for a long time they are silent. Clare rolls onto her side, turning her back to him.
‘You’re so strong, Clare. So much stronger than I am. I’m so lucky to have you… I know I am. I couldn’t be without you, darling,’ says Boyd. ‘I don’t know what I’d do, if I ever lost you.’ Clare lies very still and doesn’t answer him. None of it is a question, but all of it begs for acknowledgement. She feels hot, and hard, and tightly wound; she doesn’t trust herself to speak. She stares at the heavy door to their room; the vast iron lock, the archaic key that sits in it, ready to be turned. But she is trapped with Boyd already, of course. She has been for years.
Next morning there’s a hush at the breakfast table, as if they’re all waiting for something; even Marcie seems to feel it because though she smiles a great deal, words are few. After a while Clare realises that she isn’t the only one waiting for Ettore to appear – her hosts are too. The longer he doesn’t show, the more strained Marcie seems, and the darker Leandro’s expression becomes.
‘Perhaps your nephew wasn’t feeling very well again when he woke up. Do you think I should go and check on him?’ says Pip. All eyes turn to him, and he blushes, and Clare wonders at his intuition. For a second Leandro’s hard, black gaze settles on Pip, and Clare’s heart lurches, but then his face softens and he shrugs a little.
‘I saw him out first thing this morning. Loping along on that crutch he’s found. He’s fine, Pip, he just doesn’t want to sit down and eat like a gentleman.’
‘Why not?’ says Pip.
‘Philip, it’s rude to pry,’ says Boyd, keeping his eyes on the slice of bread in front of him, the puddle of honey where a fly is trying to land. He is sitting in a shaft of morning sun, squinting; the women have their backs to it.
‘Well, my nephew thinks I’ve sold out,’ says Leandro, ignoring Boyd.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means he thinks I’ve betrayed my people – my class – by getting rich, and becoming the owner of this place instead of one of the peasants who simply work on it.’
‘I should’ve thought he’d be happy about it,’ says Pip. ‘Like now, when he’s sick, and he can come here to recover. Isn’t he happy about that?’
‘Oh, Pip, dear, it’s very complicated,’ says Marcie. ‘The peasants here, they’re… well, it’s like they’re from a different country altogether. Like they’re a different kind of people, you know? They have their own rules and codes and…’ She waves a hand, doesn’t finish.
‘Am I a different kind of person to the rest of you?’ says Leandro. His voice is smooth and even, but the words jolt Marcie.
‘No, of course not, sugar. I was only trying to explain…’
‘Perhaps explanations are better left to those who understand,’ he says. Marcie smiles and nods, and turns all her attention to her cup of coffee. Pip’s cheeks blaze on her behalf, and Leandro smiles when he sees.
‘Ettore is happy for me. That is, he was. He doesn’t resent my wealth – it’s not that. So many men went to America from here, and so few came back. His sister’s husband went, and he vanished. They’ve had no word from him in five years now. I tried to find him over there; I tried constantly, but I never did. The last anybody heard, he was digging tunnels for the subway. Now he could be dead, alive…’ Leandro shrugs. ‘And as I said before, those that do come back usually spend what little money they saved and are soon back to where they started.
‘These are hard times; even the rich aren’t rich. The peasants look at a farm like this and they think the man who owns it must be rich. But we’re not – not by any measure outside of Puglia. The yields are poor, petrol is hard to come by, the government took most of the machinery and good animals during the war, it never damn well rains, the soil is ruined from generations of bad farming… We can’t afford to pay as many workers as want work. We leave some land fallow, because we can’t afford to pay the men to work it, and what do they do? They go and work it anyway – their Chambers of Labour tell them they have the right to work, so they go and they work it, and then they come to the proprietor and demand to be paid for their labour! So, at first my nephew was happy to see me, and he thought that because I know what life is like for these men, I would give them work – plentiful work, for good pay, all the year round. But I can’t do that, so he tells me I am one of them now, and he hates me.’ Leandro spreads his hands and shakes his head. ‘I’m wrong to say he hates me,’ he adds quietly. ‘He’s only angry. Angry that I couldn’t find Paola’s husband in New York. Angry that I can’t change the world for him. Angry about what happened at the Girardi place last year. Angry that his woman is dead.’