‘It’s hard to concentrate with you sitting there,’ he says, making a play for an offhand tone of voice.
‘Sorry, Pip,’ she says. After a moment he turns his head and looks at her, and then props himself up on his elbows.
‘Are you all right, Clare?’
‘Yes. I… I just wanted to see whether you were. Are you angry with me about the dogs?’
‘It wasn’t your fault. You told me to stay away from them and I didn’t. You don’t have to keep checking up on me, you know. I’m not a little boy.’
‘I know you’re not, but… you’re not the only one who’s lonely here, you know. I wanted to come and see you,’ she says. At this, Pip frowns in thought.
‘Marcie was talking about having a music evening, and inviting some other people,’ he says.
‘Yes. That could be fun, couldn’t it?’ says Clare. Pip shrugs.
‘James has gone camping in the Alps with all his cousins, and with Benjamin Walby from school. That would have been fun.’
‘I know. There might still be time for you to go and do something like that with your friends when we get back. I think your dad has nearly finished the designs for Mr Cardetta.’
‘I bet he hasn’t. I bet there isn’t.’ They’re both silent for a while, and Pip fiddles with his bandage again.
‘Do you think Emma would have liked it here? What do you think she would have said about the poor calves, with those awful collars?’ says Clare. Pip sighs and rolls away from her, opening his book again.
‘My mother’s dead, Clare. I have no idea what she would have said.’
The next day, Clare is far from the masseria when the sky begins to curdle. Clouds fill the sky from the north and west; indigo blue and deep, deep grey, the colour of fresh bruises. Lightning flickers in amongst them, and the breeze is suddenly cooler, so much so that after two weeks of the constant heat, Clare shivers. The change is so dramatic that she climbs onto a low stone wall and stares up at the spectacle, letting the air stream through her fingers and the full brooding power of the storm steal up on her. Her feet are sore, the skin rubbed raw from walking in her sandals, which let in the dust and grit. There’s an ache between her shoulder blades, a hard knot of tension that has turned the muscles hot with exhaustion. When thunder rolls, echoing along the empty ground, Clare remembers what Marcie said about the water running like a river when the rain finally came. She’s tempted to stay out in it, and see it, but the growing darkness is alarming, and she turns her back on the storm, turns towards the masseria. Without the hard Puglian sun everything suddenly looks dead, flat, unreal. Her eyes have got so used to the onslaught of light that she blinks repeatedly, and can’t focus. She can feel the storm rearing up behind her, and now she almost wants to run from it. It’s only weather, you fool. There’s another roll of thunder, louder, closer. She walks faster.
The olive orchard is the only other place for her to shelter before the farmhouse, but though she hesitates, she carries on through it, thinking she can make it. When the first drops of rain land on her arms they are surprisingly cold – she’d imagined a tropical rain like bathwater; imagined tipping her head back to let it run into her eyes and sluice the dust out of her hair. But the rain feels like splinters, and the next bolt of lightning is so bright it seems to bypass her eyes and sear the inside of her head, and it makes the air smell burnt; the thunderclap comes almost at once, and goes deep into her bones. With a gasp, Clare grabs at her shoulder as something hits her, hard. Hail is falling – hailstones the size of walnuts. One lands square on her head, and the pain is a shock. Clare runs. Head down, heedless, she runs for the nearest shelter as more nuggets of ice hit the ground all around her, and one catches her face, on her jaw to one side of her mouth, making her cry out in alarm. She sees the gates, held open for her, and an open doorway beyond, and she aims for it, careering inside to stand, gasping, in sudden darkness. Her hair is hanging in wet rats’ tails around her shoulders, her legs are spattered with mud, her shoes are ruined. She wipes her hands across her face and winces – there’s a small cut on her jaw where the last hailstone hit her. Then she realises she’s not alone in the hut and turns to find Ettore grinning at her, and she laughs, slightly hysterical with relief.
He takes off his hat and flaps ice from it onto the floor. For a minute they stand side by side, looking out at the storm. She has run into the guard hut by the main gates, and the roar of the hail on the stone roof drowns out thought, and any possibility of speaking. The ground is turning white with ice, the air is a grey blur and it’s dark, dark as though the sun has set, and darker still inside the hut. The storm is the only thing in the sky – clouds like vast sculptures carved into it, filling it. Then Clare feels Ettore watching her and her heart seems to convulse in her chest. She turns to him; he puts his thumb to the cut on her chin, and she feels salt from his skin stinging in the wound. It’s a small gesture, but it breaks her. It erases the last doubt she has about what she feels, and any possibility that they will not be lovers. She knows herself at last, and whoever she believed she was before, she was wrong. That woman seems like a stranger. She wants Ettore in her bloodstream. His gaze is intent but she can see that he’s waiting, and it makes her throat tighten. She takes his hand and lifts it to her mouth, and tastes her own blood on his thumb. Ettore leans forward and puts his mouth over the graze, pressing his tongue into it, and the heat of it is incredible. The sensation sinks through her like a stone through water, to settle low down in her body. Her heartbeat there, between her thighs, is louder and harder than in her chest. She throws her arms around his shoulders, her legs around his hips, and kisses him. The kiss is hard, bruising. Not loving but something visceral, an embodiment of need and want. Her weight throws him off balance on his lame leg; he stumbles and turns, jarring her back against the wall so hard that the breath rushes out of her chest, and he’s inside her so quickly that there’s pain before the rush of pleasure, felt in her bones like the thunder, like the hail. She can’t help shouting out, but the sound is lost in the roar of the hailstorm, and she can only tell from the rumble of Ettore’s chest, from the vibration where his mouth is locked on hers, that he is shouting too.
The quiet when the hail stops is so profound it rings in their ears. Clare straightens her clothes and waits to feel ashamed, or guilty. She waits to feel afraid of what she’s done, but she feels only happiness. She feels safe. She knows that Marcie and Pip will be worried about her being caught out in the storm; Marcie might even send men out to look for her now that the onslaught has stopped. Ettore stands close to her, facing her with his head resting on her shoulder, the bridge of his nose tucked into her neck. She isn’t sure if his posture is one of tenderness, or if he doesn’t want to look at her. The smell of him is instantly familiar, instantly beguiling and desperately dear to her. The parts of her he’s touching are warm, the parts he isn’t are chilly.
‘I didn’t know it could be like that. It’s never been like that,’ she says. Ettore says nothing. Gently, reluctantly, she pushes him back. ‘I should go inside. They will want to know where I am.’