Her throat constricted and she couldn’t speak. She dropped her head into her hands and stayed there, her eyes closed, in torment, until she felt his good hand brush her hair.
‘Tell me.’
‘I can’t,’ she said hoarsely.
‘Minnie, you must tell someone, or you’ll go mad. What is it that you’ve been hiding for so long? Why can’t you speak of it?’
‘Because I can’t,’ she said passionately. ‘I just can’t.’
‘Trust me, carissima. You can tell me anything. Just trust me as a friend.’
He thought she would refuse again, but then a shudder went through her and she raised her head. Her eyes were full of tears, and he wasn’t sure that she could see him. But after a moment she took a deep breath, and began to tell him everything.
CHAPTER NINE
‘I LOVED Gianni,’ she said softly. ‘I loved him with all my heart and soul. We were close in every way a man and woman can be close. We laughed at the same jokes, saw the world through the same eyes, and when we made love, everything was perfect.
‘But in the last year things started to go wrong. My career had suddenly taken off and I had to devote a lot more time to it. He’d never minded before but he began to mind about my being away from home so often. And even when I was here I had to do a lot of work. He resented it, and we began to quarrel.
‘In the end we seemed to do almost nothing but bicker. We tried to set aside some time for ourselves, we planned a big meal-we were going to cook it together-it was going to make everything right. But at the last minute I was called out to see a client. We had a terrible fight. He said if I went out now we were finished, he never wanted to see me again. I said that suited me fine because I’d had enough of him.
‘I ran out, to go to my client. He called after me, then ran down the stairs into the street. I heard him but I didn’t even look behind, I was so angry. So I didn’t hear what happened, I only heard the crash and people screaming.’
She stopped, shuddering. Silently Luke reached up to curve his arm around her and draw her down against him.
‘Go on,’ he said sombrely.
‘When I heard that terrible noise, I did look back. Gianni was lying on the ground, blood pouring from his head. He’d been hit by a truck. I ran back. He was lying so still and his eyes were closed, but I wouldn’t let myself believe he could be dead. I had so much to say to him that I had to make him hear. I knelt beside him and lifted him in my arms, telling him I was sorry, I hadn’t meant what I said, I loved him. I kept screaming over and over again that I loved him, but he couldn’t hear.’
Her words ended in a gasp. Tears were pouring down her face, and he tightened his arm, letting his lips rest on her hair, but saying nothing.
‘I did love him,’ she sobbed. ‘I didn’t mean any of those things I said, and I was going to say sorry when I came home. But when I tried to tell him, he couldn’t hear me. The last thing he heard me say was that I’d had enough of him-that was the last thing-the last thing-’
An anguished wail broke from her as her control collapsed, letting misery break through in a fierce stream that blotted out the world. There were no words now, just a wail that went on and on, as endless as her grief.
‘Minnie-’ he whispered. ‘Minnie-Minnie-’
‘It was the last thing he heard,’ she screamed. ‘I told him I was sorry-I told him again and again but he couldn’t hear-he was dead and now he’ll never know-’
The wail came again, punctuated by violent sobs that shook her until Luke feared she would break apart. He held on to her, cursing his own helplessness, feeling her grief become his own agony.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ he said, knowing that the reasonable words were worse than useless. All he could do was hold her against him, letting the warmth of his body communicate comfort, and hoping it would somehow reach her.
He was a man of action, who took firm decisions and saw things through to the end. Now he was all at sea, floundering, trying to achieve something that wasn’t in his power, desperate at his own uselessness.
He didn’t speak again, just rested his cheek against her hair, waiting for the storm to pass. Gradually her sobs subsided into a soft moan.
‘It was my fault,’ she said at last.
‘What do you mean? How can it be?’
‘If I’d gone back when he first called me-it wouldn’t have happened. I could have stopped it-he’d be alive now-’
‘Minnie, don’t think like that,’ he begged. ‘It’s the way to madness.’
‘I know. I’ve gone mad, and come back and gone mad. In my dreams it happens all over again, but this time I turn around and go back, and he’s safe, and he stays alive. And then I wake and he’s dead, and I go mad again.’
She was clutching his arm, her fingers digging in so tightly that he winced with pain, but he didn’t try to pull away. Nothing would have made him move at this moment.
‘I keep thinking that if only I could turn time back, and stop it in the right place-’ she whispered.
‘I know, I know-’
‘I try and try, but it goes on without me, and there’s nothing I can do.’
‘There never is,’ he said sadly. ‘Finality is the hardest thing to accept. There’s nothing to be done, and you can beat yourself senseless trying.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But being senseless would be a relief. It’s remembering that’s torture.’
‘What do the others in the family say? Surely they don’t blame you?’
‘They don’t know. Nobody knows.’
‘Dear God!’ he whispered, appalled by her isolation.
‘Nobody else heard what we said. Several people saw him chase me down the stairs and out into the road, but they didn’t know we were quarrelling. They think he was trying catch me up because I’d forgotten something, or he wanted to give me a final kiss. I’ve never been able to tell Netta the truth, not just for my own sake, I swear it, but because it would add to her pain. She can just about cope with thinking it was an accident-’
‘It was an accident.’
‘No, it wasn’t,’ she said with bitter self-condemnation. ‘It happened because I was angry and cruel and-’
‘Stop it!’ he said fiercely. ‘Stop it, don’t talk like that. You’re not to blame. It was just one of those terrible flips of the coin that happen without warning. It destroyed him, but it’s come near to destroying you, too.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed bleakly. ‘Sometimes I look at Netta and wonder what she’d think if she knew the truth. She’s kind to me and I want to tell her that I don’t deserve it.’
‘But you do. You deserve kindness and love and everything that’s good. How can I convince you?’
She didn’t answer for a long time, and then she simply repeated, ‘He’ll never know,’ in a broken whisper. ‘I’ve tried to tell him so often since. Just before the funeral I saw him in his coffin and I told him that I loved him and I was sorry, but it was no use. It wasn’t him. He was cold and grey like a waxwork and I couldn’t see my Gianni because he’d gone somewhere I couldn’t follow.’
A memory came back to him.
‘That day when I saw you at his grave-’
‘We go there on anniversaries, his birthday, the day he died-I’d rather go alone but Netta likes it to be a family party.’
‘Yes, I remember, it almost looked like a party. The boys were telling him jokes.’
‘That’s how it is. Gianni’s still one of the family. They talk as though he were there. They still love him, like they still love me, and I feel such a fraud.’
‘And when you all went away, you turned to look back at him, and I saw your face. Everything you’ve just told me was there, only I didn’t understand.’