‘She’s probably the runt. Best not to get too attached to her, son, they often die.’ This makes some little spark in Pip fade out, visibly, and Clare wishes Boyd would see. She wishes he wouldn’t say such things.
‘I’m sure she’ll be fine now she has Pip to look after her,’ she says, but Pip doesn’t react.
‘It’ll be full of worms – don’t let it chew you like that. And make sure you wash your hands with lots of soap.’
‘Peggy’s a she, not an it,’ says Pip.
‘Pure Gioia mongrel, through and through,’ says Leandro. He smiles, scuffing the puppy’s smooth head with his knuckles. Peg twists around and tries to gnaw his hand. ‘Tough as old boot leather; smart and loyal too. She’ll be a good dog for you, Pip.’ When Pip smiles Clare feels the pull of it in her chest, far under her ribs; a spreading warmth like a swig of brandy, swallowed fast.
‘Well, she’ll have to stay here when we leave,’ says Boyd, and Clare hates him for a moment.
‘Peggy’s coming home with us,’ she says flatly. She walks past her husband and up the stairs to greet Marcie, who has appeared on the terrace with fresh powder on her cheeks and fresh red lipstick on her mouth, her hair immaculate.
Clare looks up at Leandro’s wife as she reaches the top step, and for a second sees an expression on Marcie’s face that she’s never seen before – something flat, cold, almost hostile. She falters but the look disappears at once, replaced by that dazzling, indiscriminate smile, and Clare thinks she must have imagined it.
‘My dear Clare, what on earth has happened to you?’ says Marcie.
‘Oh, I fell. I lost my footing on some steps.’ They kiss with a light press of each cheek, like the men with their shoulders – the same not-quite embrace.
‘Sweetie! Were you faint again?’ Marcie takes her hands, drops her voice and her face towards Clare. ‘You’re not in the family way are you, honey?’
‘Oh, no,’ says Clare, at once. And then she thinks of her dizziness, her nausea, the odd tastes in her mouth, that she hasn’t had her period at all since they arrived in Italy. The shock of it causes her throat to clench, choking out a single stunned syllable. Marcie looks at her quizzically.
‘Well, come and sit down, do. How was your little trip?’ There again is something in Marcie’s tone, some note that could be a warning. But Clare can’t tell if she’s heard it or imagined it, and she lets herself be led to a chair and seated because a mad buzzing has started up in her ears, and she can’t follow what Marcie says next.
Later on Clare helps Pip dose the puppy for worms. They go down into the smoky kitchen – a cavernous space running beneath the long barn that forms the west wing of the quad, where the low vaulted ceiling is black with generations of soot, and the heat is a solid, tangible thing. There’s a huge iron range with a stack of twisted firewood beside it, and pots on every hot plate; a smell of smuts and meat, of yeast and ashes. The cook, Ilaria, has a recipe to purge the parasites; she describes it at length as she mixes it, not seeming to mind that Clare and Pip don’t understand a word, and make no reply. She grinds cloves and pumpkin seeds, dried wormwood with its bitter stink, and some other herb that Clare can’t identify. She binds this mixture into a pellet with a glob of lard, sticky and rank. Peggy squirms as though she knows what’s coming as Ilaria cranks open her jaws and shoves the purge far down her throat. The puppy gives a little whine of protest, and gags as it goes down. Ilaria wipes her fingers on her apron and gives them a satisfied nod. Job done. They thank her in Italian as they turn to leave.
At the bottom of the kitchen steps Clare puts her hand on Pip’s arm.
‘Please, wait a moment,’ she says. Up above is the bright oblong of the doorway, the blanching sunlight waiting outside, making it hard to hide. Clare wants shadows and quiet in which to speak. Pip bends and puts Peggy down; the puppy gambols between their feet and then settles down to chew the toe of Pip’s shoe. ‘Pip, listen. I…’ But Clare doesn’t know what she wants to say, exactly. Only that she must speak. Pip has saved her from herself already – it was he who suggested that they get the master key from Carlo to reopen her bedroom door, when she’d been frantic and stupid with fright and self-recrimination at losing the original.
‘Did he do that to you?’ says Pip, looking at her swollen lip.
‘No! Of course not.’ She’s not even sure how he knew, or why she didn’t deny it. You’ve been with him, haven’t you? With Ettore? That was his question, his accusation, in the dark of the masseria, outside her locked door. She could have denied it; she could have laughed, or feigned outrage. But she’d felt utterly exposed, and wretched, and she’d needed him, and all she’d had left was honesty.
‘Are you going to leave Father?’ he says.
‘No.’ She has a numb feeling, and that buzzing in her ears again, and she knows he’s really asking: Are you going to leave me? And the answer to that has always been no.
‘But you’re in love with Ettore.’ Pip shakes his head, won’t look her in the eye. Clare wonders if he can see this love on her, somehow; then she realises that he simply can’t conscience her being treacherous for anything less.
‘But I’m married to your father, darling.’
‘I’m not a child, Clare! Stop treating me like one! You think you can give me a puppy – a puppy he gave you – and that’ll make everything all right? That I’ll be so busy playing with her I won’t notice you lying and sneaking?’
‘Ettore meant the puppy to be for you. Pip, please.’ She catches his arm again, as he turns to go.
‘I want to hear the truth, Clare. I can’t… I don’t want you to lie to me. To hide things.’ He’s working hard not to cry.
‘All right, Pip. All right. I… I am in love with him. But I’m not going to leave you.’ She can’t bring herself to say she won’t leave Boyd; she can’t make herself imagine what life will be like if she stays with him, for ever. But that is what she promised when she married him. It’s like being crushed by a heavy, heavy weight. Are you in the family way? If she is, there’s no possible way the child can be Boyd’s. How can their marriage continue under those circumstances? Yet beneath her panic there’s a rising arc of elation. A baby; Ettore’s baby. Pip’s face contorts and for a moment she thinks he’s going to cry; then she realises its disgust.
‘How could you, Clare? He can barely speak Italian, let alone English! I bet he can’t read or write. He’s a… a dirty peasant!’
‘Pip!’ Clare is stunned. ‘How could you be so hateful? A dirty peasant? You sound like…’ She searches her mind, because these words are familiar but they don’t sound like Pip’s. Then she realises – they sound like Marcie’s. Clare shuts her mouth abruptly, and Pip’s cheeks blaze. He looks stricken, ashamed of himself but defiant.
‘Well, anyway, you won’t see him any more, will you? You won’t keep going to Gioia,’ he says.
‘No. No, I won’t go again.’
‘And you still love my father? You always told me it was possible to love two people – the way Father loves my mother, and you as well.’ There, in the midst of this frighteningly adult conversation, is a snatch of the childishness that hasn’t quite left him.