Kitabı oku: «Angry Desire»

CHAPTER ONE

SHE began to run on the morning of her wedding-day—a cool May morning—before the sun was up.

She had been awake all night, moving restlessly around her Islington flat from room to room, unable to sleep. Each time she caught sight of herself in a mirror she saw the panic in her eyes, their blue so dark that it was almost black. She looked strange, unfamiliar, her face white against the fall of her long, straight black hair, her lips bloodless, quivering.

In a corner of her bedroom on a padded hanger hung the long white dress inside a transparent plastic bag.

‘It looks like a butterfly in a cocoon,’ Lara had said when she’d come round to see Gabriella two days ago. Her cousin had given her a thoughtful glance. ‘Is that how you feel, Gabi? As if you’re waiting to break out into a new life? I remember I did. I suppose it’s the biggest change in a woman’s life, getting married. Life is never the same again.’ Then she’d looked more sharply at Gabriella and frowned. ‘Are you OK? You don’t look like a joyful bride somehow—getting cold feet? We all do, you know.’

‘I don’t believe you did!’ Gabriella had been startled; she would never have expected Lara to have any nerves about anything; her cousin was a capable, confident, assertive woman, just as her mother had been. Nobody ever believed that she and Lara were first cousins. They couldn’t have been less alike.

Lara had nodded, looking amused. ‘Don’t sound so surprised. I’m human too, you know! I remember I was so nervous that I couldn’t eat for days beforehand. When I came out of it I was on my honeymoon and starving. I couldn’t stop eating; Bob began to think he’d married a food-junkie.’

Gabriella had laughed, but she didn’t laugh now as she stared at her wedding-dress. She had bought it in a bridal shop in London; it had caught her eye at once because it was so romantic—white satin and lace, Victorian-style, low at the neck, with a tight waist and a full crinoline-like skirt which had palest pink satin rosebuds scattered here and there.

It had needed some alterations—a tuck here and there—and she had had two fittings before it fitted perfectly, yet now she couldn’t remember what she looked like in the dress. She couldn’t think of anything but the fear which had begun to tear at her last night, like a wild animal shut inside her breast.

He had noticed, of course; he noticed everything, his narrowed grey eyes searching her face remorselessly, and she hadn’t been able to hide her fear or her sick recoil. But all he had said was, ‘Get a good night’s sleep, Gabriella. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Just one more day, though, and then we’ll have several weeks of sunshine and peace, just the two of us alone.’

He had bent to kiss her again and she had stiffened involuntarily, hearing the echo of his words like a deadly threat. ‘Just the two of us alone…alone…alone…’

At least his kiss that time had been as light as the touch of a moth’s wing and soon over. She hadn’t met his eyes, or looked at the hard, insistent angles of his face.

Gabriella was only five feet two but he was a big man, well over six feet, and although he dressed expensively, in smooth city suits most of the time, the body beneath was lean and spare, powerfully muscled. He had tremendous energy too. She had always known that he was a dynamic man in business—his whole career bore witness to that—but with her he had been different. She had been deceived by his coldly controlled face, and the tight rein on which he kept himself when he was with her. She had got the impression that he was not sexually demanding, that he was not an emotional or passionate man.

How could she have been so blind?

She turned hurriedly, almost falling over one of the expensive leather cases standing near the door, packed ready for departure. Gabriella stared down at them. Her cases had been packed since yesterday, to be collected on the day itself and put into the car which would take them to the airport.

Everything had been carefully planned far ahead, organised down to the last detail by Stephen’s secretary, a capable middle-aged woman who had worked for him for years.

Gabriella’s passport was in her handbag. Stephen had told her that she needn’t bother to bring any money with her, but that had ruffled her sense of independence. She and Stephen were still arguing about her job—he wanted her to stop work when they were married, but she wanted to retain the freedom of being responsible for herself, having her own life outside her home and marriage.

So she had refused to let him give her money before they were married; it would have made her feel as if she was being bought. In her handbag she had a folder full of American dollars which she had got from her own bank; it hadn’t left her much in her deposit account, but at least it was hers, so she could take it with her now.

She only had to pick up her cases and walk out, she thought. She didn’t have to go through with it. She could just vanish.

Where, though? She had to go somewhere. Her mind worked feverishly. She could take a plane to…No, if she went by air she would have to hire a car and it would be too easy for him to check her name on passenger lists at the airport, and check with car-hire firms.

But would he look for her?

She shivered. He would be so angry. She had seen him lose his temper once when his secretary had had to confess to having mislaid a vital fax. She didn’t want that black rage turned on her, and this was much worse than some office mistake. Stephen was going to lose face in a very public way. He would be humiliated, made to look a fool.

He would probably never want to set eyes on her, or even hear her name again.

She choked back a half-hysterical laugh which was also half a sob. No, not him. That much she did know about him. He would want to find her and…He’ll kill me! she thought, her stomach churning.

Think, think! she told herself, trying to clear her weary brain. She had her car. She could just drive out of London and head somewhere quiet and far away…Cumbria, maybe? Or the far west of Cornwall? Or the Fens? Britain was full of secret, remote places, without railway stations, or hotels, or shopping centres—little villages lost in the countryside, where nothing much ever happened or changed, where few people ever visited.

Oh, but wherever she went in Britain people would read newspapers. She wasn’t famous, but Stephen was wealthy and well-known. Some reporter might pick the story up and sell it. Then there would be pictures of her appearing, she would be recognised, and someone unscrupulous who wanted to earn some easy money might ring the Press and tell them where she was, and they would tell Stephen.

No, she must go abroad, as far away as possible. Foreign newspapers wouldn’t bother with the story. France was closest; she could easily lose herself in a country as large and as underpopulated as France, but she only knew a little French, and her accent was so atrocious that whenever she tried to say anything in shops or markets crowds of locals gathered to hear her and laugh their heads off at the way she mangled their language.

She didn’t have enough money, either, to support herself for very long. She would have to get some sort of work wherever she went, and for that she would have to be able to speak the language. She could get a job in a hotel, maybe, or a restaurant. She was a good cook—she had been well-trained—and they wouldn’t insist on references if she offered to show what she could do. But she wouldn’t get a job if she couldn’t speak the language.

It had to be Italy, then, in spite of the fact that that was where Stephen would expect her to go. Italy, too, was a large country—surely she could hide herself in it somewhere? She would drive down to Dover and buy a ticket for the Channel ferry using cash, making it harder to trace her than if she booked a ticket in advance—she wouldn’t show up on the computers until after she had left. Once in France she would make her way on the autoroute into Italy by the most direct route. If she left now she could be in France before Stephen even knew she had gone.

Her mother had been Italian, and Gabriella had been born there and lived there until she was eleven and her mother had died. She had dual nationality and spoke the language fluently. She would not stand out in Italy; she could easily be taken for a native.

She wouldn’t be able to go anywhere near Brindisi, where her mother had come from—there were only distant relatives living there now, but Stephen knew about them, and would look there first. She would make for the northern part of Italy, as far away from Brindisi as possible.

She hurried into her bathroom and, dragging her nightdress over her head, stepped into the shower. The sting of the water sharpened her mind; a few minutes later she towelled herself dry and began to dress.

First she put on black lace panties and a matching bra, and then old blue jeans and a thin blue cotton sweater. She didn’t want to be noticed; she would pass without comment in her old clothes, and they would be comfortable for travelling.

Her long black hair she put up in a knot at the back of her neck, but she put on no make-up, not even a touch of lipstick. She would wear dark glasses as she drove and keep them on as she crossed the Channel—that would help keep her anonymous.

She mustn’t be recognised anywhere on the way because Stephen was going to be right behind her, and the very thought of him scared her stiff.

Oh, God, why didn’t I face it long ago? she inwardly wailed, shivering.

What would he do to her if he caught up with her? Last night she had seen the real Stephen, the nature he had hidden from her all these months. She wasn’t blinkered any more—she knew she could expect no mercy from him.

She had to let him know in advance, even so; she couldn’t just run away and leave him standing at the altar not knowing what had happened to her. She sat down at a table and scribbled a note to him. There was no time to pick and choose her words, to break it tactfully; she simply told him that she was very sorry, please to forgive her, but she couldn’t go through with it, and was going away.

She began to fold the note, then on an afterthought added a few more lines.

Please let everyone know and make my apologies. Try to understand, Stephen—I’m sorry, I just can’t marry you after all. I thought I could, but I can’t. I’m sorry, I can’t explain.

She signed it with her name in a scrawl then read it and groaned. It was incoherent—he would think she’d been drunk when she wrote it, but it was the best she could do, and there was no time to try again.

She would put it into his mail-box at the apartment block on her way out of town—she knew the porter delivered all mail at eight o’clock, which was around the time the post office delivered it.

The wedding was due to take place at eleven-thirty—Stephen would have time to cancel the service and the reception before people began arriving. At least he would have help—he had a huge secretarial team in his offices; they could make the phone calls for him. Even so, she flinched from the thought of the chaos that was going to follow: the presents that would have to go back, the three-tiered bridal cake that nobody would want now, all the food for the reception.

It was going to be embarrassing and humiliating for Stephen and she felt a weary sense of shame at doing this to him as she stared down at the envelope on which she had written his name and address.

For a second she couldn’t decide what to do, then the panic began to burn in her stomach again and she swung away. She could not go through with it, that was all. Whatever the consequences, she could not marry him.

To calm herself, she concentrated on little details—went through her handbag to check that she had everything she would need, then put on a light summer jacket—black and white striped. Picking up her car keys, she was about to let herself out of the flat when she saw some letters on a table; she had written them yesterday morning, and forgotten to post them. Automatically she picked them up and was about to put them into her bag when her eye fell on the address on the top letter.

At that second, inspiration hit her. Paolo! In his letter he had said that he was staying at a villa on Lake Como; he would be there all summer, until September; he was painting a series of frescos on the walls of a small private theatre in the villa, which was owned by a world-famous opera director who liked to try out future productions in his own theatre.

It was like a signpost blazing her path. That’s it, I’ll go to the Italian Lakes, she thought. They’re hundreds of miles north of Brindisi. Stephen isn’t likely to think of looking there—why should he? I’ve never told him how important Paolo is to me.

Dropping the envelopes into her handbag, she let herself out of the little flat on the ground floor of an old Victorian house. Her car was parked in what had once been the front garden; now, covered in asphalt, it served as a car park for the tenants of the flats into which the house had been divided.

It was five-thirty in the morning; London was grey and dim, with few cars around, and even fewer people. The street-lights glowed yellow as she headed south towards the river. She pulled up beside a red postbox which she saw on a corner, and posted all the letters except the one to Paolo. There was so little traffic that it only took her ten minutes after that to reach the apartment block facing Hyde Park with views of the cool green shade under the trees.

It had been one of Stephen’s most prestigious projects, built five years ago right in the heart of London’s most expensive and fashionable area, with marvellous views. Even a small flat there cost the earth.

Stephen had moved into the penthouse apartment as soon as the building had been completed; he had always meant to live there, he had told her. He had worked on the specifications of the penthouse with the architect with his own tastes in mind, and had chosen the décor, creating a perfect home for himself.

Beyond his long, beautifully furnished lounge lay a broad terrace garden; it even had small trees growing in pots, and shrubs and flowers which breathed fragrance at night. She had loved walking out there at night, watching London far below, the sound of it muted, unreal.

Being so close to the park was wonderful too, almost giving one the feeling of being in the country. On hot days you could get cool in the shade of the trees, have a picnic, or row on the Serpentine. Stephen rode in Hyde Park at weekends, on a big black Arab horse which he kept in stables near by, and in the early mornings he jogged in a tracksuit to keep fit, following the twisting paths under the trees for half an hour.

It was lighter when she parked outside the apartment block, knowing that there were unlikely to be police around at that hour. It was the work of a minute to run across the pavement and drop her letter into the chrome letter-box on the front of the locked bullet-proof glass doors of the block.

The porter seated behind his desk looked up, recognised her, looked startled, but immediately gave a polite smile, and stretched his hand out ready to press the button that would open the doors electronically, if she wished, but she shook her head and turned away.

Behind her she sensed him walking towards the doors to collect the letter she had delivered.

Please don’t take it up at once! she thought, her heart going like a steam-hammer.

He wouldn’t, though, surely? Not at this hour! He would keep it and take it up with the rest of Stephen’s mail.

Although it was cool she was sweating as she got back into her car. She slammed the door, put on her seatbelt, and then risked a glance upwards to the soaring top of the forty-storey block, to where the penthouse rose against the early morning sky.

She had expected the high, wide windows to be dark too, but they blazed with light. Shock hit her. Stephen must be awake. Couldn’t he sleep either? It hadn’t occurred to her that he might be nervous too; might have doubts or uncertainties.

A shadow moved at one of the windows and her throat closed in fear. Was that him? Or was she imagining it? It was so far up that she couldn’t be sure. Was he looking out? Looking down? What if he saw her? What if he had spotted the car? Was he watching her, wondering what she was doing out there, and if she was coming up? Would he come down to find out if she had left a message?

Her hands shaking, she started her engine and stepped on the accelerator, shooting away as if the devil himself were after her.

She drove far too fast in sheer panic but there were no police cars around to notice her. She shot through comparatively empty streets down to the softly moving Thames with its glittering reflections of light from the embankment and the high-rise office blocks on each bank. A few moments later she was across Westminster Bridge, and driving into the southern suburbs, unnaturally quiet at this hour, the normally crowded roads almost empty, just the odd car passing her, and a bus lumbering into the city with a few sleepy passengers, workmen on their way home after a night shift.

I won’t ring Paolo from England, I’ll make for Lake Como, she thought. I’ll book into a hotel, and only then get in touch; that will be safest.

She had written to tell him that she was getting married and to invite him to the wedding but he had written back to say he was sorry but he couldn’t make it. He had hoped that she would be happy, and he had sent her an exquisite piece of Venetian glass—a candelabra, frosty and twisting, a centrepiece for a dinner-table, he’d said. She had only received it yesterday and she hadn’t yet told Stephen about it.

She didn’t remember mentioning Paolo to him at all, but his name had been on the list of wedding invitations under his home address in Rome. Stephen probably wouldn’t have noticed it, except to assume that he was one of her Italian relatives, and in a sense that was close in the truth. Paolo meant more to her than any of them ever had, anyway.

She arrived at Dover with half an hour to wait before she could board the ferry, and she had had time to think while she drove. So when she bought her ticket she managed to get some loose change, went to a phone box in the ferry terminal, and rang Lara.

The ringing went on for a long time before a sleepy voice finally came on the line, growling, ‘Who…?’

‘Lara, it’s me, Gabriella,’ she began, and Lara gave an outraged squawk.

‘You’re kidding! Gabi, what the hell do you mean by ringing me at…? Where’s that damned clock…? Good grief, it’s only seven-thirty! Do you know what time I went to bed? Five minutes ago! Tommy’s new tooth decided to come through last night; he cried and yelled until he was tomato-red and I was as limp as lettuce. He only went to sleep as it began to get light, the little monster. So, whatever the crisis, you’ll have to cope with it without me. I need some sleep before I even think about getting ready.’

Before she could hang up Gabriella said huskily, ‘I’m not getting married today, Lara.’

A silence. ‘What?’

Gabriella talked fast to stop her from interrupting. ‘I’m going away. I’ve written to Stephen. I’m sorry, I can’t explain—I have to go, but will you tell the others? Say I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, but I just can’t go through with it.’

She ran out of words then and hung up, but not before hearing her cousin burst out, ‘Where are you going? What…?’

Gabriella stared at her face reflected in the perspex hood over the phone. With her black hair pulled back off her forehead and no make-up on her face, she looked even younger, her eyes a turmoil of feelings that she had kept shut down for years and was still terrified of confronting.

I must cut my hair! she thought. It is far too long. I’ll have it cut short as soon as I get to France.

She bought a cup of hot black coffee from a stall and drank it in her car, staring at the waiting lines of cars ahead of her. They finally began to move and she followed them up into the ferry, parked as commanded by the seaman in charge and went up into the ship.

She couldn’t have eaten to save her life. She sat out on deck and watched the green hills of England fade into the distance as they sailed. It was a very short trip—just an hour and a half.

She drove off in Calais and followed the road system circling the old town—it was amazing how quickly one got out of Calais and got on to the motorway to Paris.

By half-past eleven—the hour when she would have been walking up the aisle towards Stephen—she was well on her way towards Paris. After checking the map, she had decided that she could not face driving across the mountains, through Switzerland, via the Simplon Pass, which would probably be a hair-raising experience for an inexperienced driver. Instead she headed for the Autoroute du Sud for Menton and the Italian border. It was a long way round, but the terrain would be easier to handle.

She could not make the trip in one day—it was around seven hundred miles. She drove until she was dropping with exhaustion and then looked for a motorway hotel for the night. By then she was well past Lyon.

She ate a light meal in the hotel restaurant—melon followed by a goat’s cheese salad—then went to bed. The room was sparsely furnished with a bed, one uncomfortable chair, and a rail for clothes, and there was a tiny shower-room with a lavatory. At least that was clean and very modern. It cost her very little, and she could have slept on the floor, she was so weary.

Even so, she woke up several times with bad dreams, trembling and sweating, remembering only Stephen’s face, haunted by it.

The last time she woke it was half-past five so she showered, got dressed and went to have breakfast. It was better than the evening meal. The coffee was strong, there was orange juice and compotes of real fruit, the rolls were freshly cooked, and there were croissants and little pots of jam.

Gabriella drank juice and several cups of coffee, but only one croissant. Then she checked out, paid her bill by credit card, because it would take some time for the details to reach England, and then set off again, into a blue and gold morning, heading south. The further she went, the warmer the weather became. The landscape changed all the time, from the deciduous trees and green fields of mid-France to the cypress, olives and herb-scented maquis of Provence.

The motorway curved round from Provence towards the Côte d’Azur; the sky was a deep glowing blue, and now and then she saw the sea on her right, even deeper blue and glittering with sunlight. She drove through the low green foothills of the Alpes-Maritimes, saw the red roofs and white walls of villas lining the slopes of the hills and tumbling down towards the sea.

It looked so lovely that she was tempted to stay there a night or two. By then she was tired again, and in a mood to weep like a child, but she forced herself to push on and in the late afternoon she crossed the border into Italy at Menton, and turned up north again, away from the sea and the Italian Riviera, towards Milan and the Italian Lakes. She was turning back on herself, but the road was half-empty and she made good speed—it was still faster than trying to use a more direct route.

Driving became more difficult after she left the motorway and found herself on the narrow, twisting, traffic-laden roads running around the glimmering waters of Como, set like a blue mirror between jagged mountains.

She was almost hallucinating by then, driving like an automaton, barely aware of her surroundings and beginning to be afraid that she would crash. She must stop, must find a hotel, she thought stupidly, trying to stay awake.

She didn’t know the area at all and had no idea which hotel to check into, but when she found herself driving past a hotel entrance she simply spun the wheel and turned in through the old black wrought-iron gates, followed by the angry horn blasts of other drivers who had been startled by her sudden move.

It was obviously an old grand hotel, now a little shabby but still glittering with chandeliers and marble floors, set in well-kept gardens, looking out across Lake Como which she could see through the trees running down the sides of the hotel.

There were other cars parked echelon-style on the gravelled drive; she pulled in beside one of them. Before getting out her case she walked unsteadily into the hotel reception area feeling almost drunk with tiredness.

The reception clerk behind the polished mahogany counter looked up politely and shot an assessing glance over her jeans and old jacket, his face cooling.

‘Sì, signorina?’ He had apparently even noticed the lack of a wedding-ring on her hand.

Gabriella found herself beginning to answer in easy Italian. She hadn’t forgotten her mother’s tongue, then! She explained that she was travelling and needed a room for a night or two, that her car was parked outside, with her luggage inside it.

The clerk looked sceptical but offered her a printed brochure which gave the prices of the rooms, perhaps expecting her to be taken aback by the high cost of staying there, and Gabriella gave it a cursory glance, nodding, not really caring how much it cost. She had to get some sleep and she wasn’t short of cash, thank heavens.

‘Do you have a room facing the lake?’

‘A single room?’

‘Please.’

‘How will you be paying, signorina?’ the clerk warily enquired.

‘Cash, in advance,’ Gabriella said, getting out a wallet and laying down the price of the room for that night.

The clerk considered the money. ‘You do not have a credit card?’

‘Certainly,’ she said, showing it to him. He picked it up and checked the details on it. ‘But I wish to pay cash for tonight. If I decide to stay longer, and you have a room available, I may use my credit card for any larger amounts. Is that a problem?’

He looked puzzled but shook his head, gave her back her credit card and the usual card every guest had to fill in, asked to see her passport and looked even more startled as she gave him the Italian one.

‘You are Italian?’ That told her that her accent wasn’t quite as good as she had thought it was.

Quietly she explained, ‘I was born here, but I live in Britain. My father was British, my mother Italian, so I have dual nationality.’

He handed her back the passport, a smile finally crossing his face. ‘Then I do not need to keep this.’ He picked up her money and handed her a key. ‘I hope you have a very pleasant stay with us, signorina. Would you like help with your luggage?’

‘Please,’ she said, handing him the key of her car. ‘Just the smaller tan leather case, please.’

She went to the room and immediately plunged her sweating face into cool, clear water. What she wanted was a bath, but that could wait until her luggage arrived and she could unpack clean clothes to change into.

The porter brought her case; she tipped him generously, got a broad grin and asked him to book her in for dinner for the evening.

When she was alone again she stripped and had a long, relaxing bath, put on a white cambric dress, the bodice stiff with broderie anglaise, and lay down on the bed, her muscles weak and her ears singing with hypertension.

She couldn’t remember ever having been this tired before! She wanted to go to sleep, but first she had to ring Paolo.

It was surely many months since she had last spoken to him. They were neither of them great letter writers, and anyway theirs was a very intermittent friendship; it was often several years before they got in touch, but the minute they did it was as if they had never been apart.