101 Pieces of Me (24 page)

It was unexpectedly difficult to say his name. “Ai…” I began, then changed my mind and began again. “I only know,” I said as steadily as I could, “that if what I felt for David was not love, then I do not know what it was. But I do not know what I feel for you.”

His gaze fell, and he took several quick puffs on his cigarette without blowing much smoke out between them. “Is that the honest truth?” he asked.

“That is the honest truth.”

“You do not despise me?”

“
Despise
you? Oh…”

My face still felt very hot but, propelled by a feeling stronger than embarrassment, I went and embraced him. He made no attempt to pull me closer to him; he barely even moved, as if he hardly noticed that I was there. But something inside my brain released itself, like a knot untying. I felt my scalp and neck muscles relax. Perhaps the time would come when I
could
do ordinary things again. Perhaps I
would
walk down some street with some man, laughing and talking. I had been unaware of the tension in my body, but now my attention was drawn to my physical presence. It was as if I had opened a door and seen myself standing there in the kitchen, and glimpsed the future.

“If I despised you once,” I told him, “that is because I was an ignorant child. Now I am no longer ignorant, and no longer a child, though you must make up your own mind what I am.” I stood back and, bashfulness getting the better of me, turned back to my bread and cheese.

“I know what you are, Clara,” he said to my back. His voice was low, and full of forgiveness and relief. “You are far too good for me.”

A
sound like the drone of a thousand bees awakened me, though I barely knew I had been asleep.

Then Aidan’s footsteps crossed the courtyard and hurried up the stone stairs. He found me sitting on our narrow balcony, as I did every afternoon when it was too warm to go out walking, and crouched in front of my chair. Through a still-sleepy haze I looked at his sun-touched face and unruly hair. He looked younger than usual, less like an actor and more like an excited boy. I had to stifle the desire to take his face between my hands. “What was that funny noise?” I asked.

“Noise? Oh, never mind about that, that’s just my motorcycle. The point is, David’s arrived!”

“Oh! Why have you got a motorcycle?”

“Because I’m fed up with waiting for that scoundrel Angelo to drive me around. He’s always late, and he’s a worse drunkard than I am. But don’t you want to hear my news? Giovanni told me today that David and some companions have arrived for a stay at his villa. Stefano, Giovanni’s son, is coming from Rome, too, so there is bound to be a party, to which I will be invited. I’ve mentioned ‘my cousin Sarah’ to Giovanni on several occasions, and he’s always looking out for a nice girl for Stefano, though Stefano wouldn’t know a nice girl from a hole in the ground, so I don’t think it will be difficult to get you an invitation too.”

As he talked, I watched his eyes. “The eyes have it” was the popular phrase to describe good acting, a pun on the pronouncement of a triumphant bill in the House of Commons: “the ayes have it”.

Aidan’s eyes had more “it” than I had ever seen, except when he was acting. There was a light in them, an alertness, a desire to move ahead and get something done.

“So we have to do it at this party, or never?”

He nodded. “No rehearsals and no script, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll be so nervous!”

He stood up. In the small balcony space, his body obscured the sun. I could not see his features, but his voice was determined. “Tell me something, Clara. Do you think you could learn to ride a motorcycle?” He was leaning against the balustrade, arms folded, with the smallest of breezes lifting the forelock of his hair. There was a question in his eyes, but excitement too.

“As a matter of fact,” I told him, “I can already.”

H
e was very surprised. “Really?” he asked eagerly. “That’s wonderful! But how come a girl … well, you know…”

“Because of my brother,” I told him. “My film-mad, motor-car mad brother.”

Aidan was interested. He sat down on the floor in the narrow space, braced his feet against the house wall and lit a cigarette. “So he had a motorcycle, did he?”

“No!” I tried not to sound scornful of the idea. “He had a bicycle. But one day during the war, when he was about twelve, a soldier stopped at the Lamb and Flag for a drink of water. All the boys wanted a ride on his motorcycle, of course. The poor soldier had to fight them off. And ever since that day, Frank went on and on about getting a motorcycle.”

“And he never did?”

I shook my head. “But he did rent one. He
said
Bobby Pritchard’s father let him borrow his motorcycle, but I knew money had changed hands.” I paused, remembering. “It was an ex-army 1915 Triumph Model H.”

Aidan laughed. “Not many girls know things like that! So did you ride it too?”

“Of course. I told Frank if he didn’t let me, I’d tell Mam and Da that he was paying Mr Pritchard out of the money he got from Da for doing farm chores and was supposed to be saving.”

“And how did it feel to ride a motorcycle?”

Vivid memories arose. After repeated attempts to start the motorcycle and hot-faced frustration, the machine had begun to respond under my hands and feet. I’d flown down the hill with Frank running after me, screeching. “Marvellous,” I said.

“What happened then?” asked Aidan, reaching up to tip ash over the balcony. “Did you get goggles and a scarf, and roar round the village like a lion on two wheels?”

“Well, I rode the motorcycle enough times to understand what to do and what not to do. But the following year Mr Pritchard’s business hit a bad patch and he sold the Triumph, and that was that. I hadn’t even thought about it for years.”

Aidan was still looking amused. In that moment he seemed more carefree than I had ever seen him. His longed-for opportunity to atone for his mother’s unhappiness was near. The plan hatched that day on a bench in Hyde Park was at last underway. Now David had arrived, there was no turning back.

I got to my feet. “The clapperboard’s come down, Aidan, hasn’t it?”

G
iovanni Bassini’s villa was exactly as anyone would imagine an Italian film director’s villa to be. It occupied a high spot, with a sea view on three sides. It had a shady verandah and a sunny garden. The floors were marble and the ceilings heavily decorated. Tall glass doors opened from the ballroom onto a terrace, where the dancing continued. Parked on the driveway was a line of sleek cars. Lights hung in the trees; waiters scurried about with trays of champagne. A year ago I would have been astounded by the opulence, but when Aidan and I stepped out of the car to be welcomed by Giovanni’s butler, the only surprising thing was how unsurprised I felt.

It was as staged as a film set, and I had seen enough film sets to be weary of them. I had no desire to see what the women were wearing, or which man was or was not attractive, or how expensive anyone’s jewels were. I was so tense that the headache that had started at the back of my head before we left the apartment was now creeping over my entire skull. And I was uncomfortable in the gown that Aidan had picked out for me from a shop in Castiglioncello.

“I don’t like it,” I had protested. “It shows too much of my legs. And it’s too low in the back. What will I wear underneath it?”

“Very little,” Aidan had said. “But it doesn’t matter whether
you
like it.
David’s
got to like it.” I had on a pair of French knickers, with suspenders and stockings, but nothing else under the dress, which was made of thin knitted silk. The straps were so narrow I worried that at any time they would fall off my shoulders, and the skirt was so short, I resolved not to sit down for the whole evening. I clasped my evening bag to my chest as I followed Aidan into the party, feeling exposed as never before.

Aidan took hold of my arm and we crossed the room, ducking between dancing couples until we reached the open doors to the terrace. But before we could take another step, Aidan was stopped by a young man. “Allan, no, I should say
Aidan
! There you are!” he exclaimed, greeting Aidan with an Italian-style embrace.

Stefano was undoubtedly handsome, but I did not find myself attracted to him. He was slim, and about the same height as Aidan, but there were grey shadows under his rather puffy eyes, and he did not have the bearing of his school friend. When his dark eyes rested upon my face, they took on a predictable expression. “And this must be
la cugina
!”

“Indeed,” said Aidan, a little stiffly, as if I were really his young cousin. “Stefano Bassini, Sarah Freebody.”

Breathing down his nose with a sort of satisfied sigh, Stefano took my hand and kissed it. “Who would have thought that Aidan has such a beauty in his family?”

I responded with a shy smile, though I was wearily familiar with the look on Stefano’s face. “Pleased to meet you, Signor Bassini.”

“Oh, call me Stef!” He pulled my hand to his chest and held it there. “Signorina, I have a question for you. Tell me, have you ever considered a career in pictures? My father could get you a part tomorrow, just like that!”

I
was ready with the story Aidan and I had rehearsed. “Oh no, not at all! Er … thank you very much, but I am training to be a teacher of languages.”

He still did not release my hand. “So your loveliness will be visible only to your students?”

I said nothing, but lowered my eyes modestly. When I looked up again I was just in time to see Stefano and Aidan exchange a “what can you do?” look. My pretence of being a bluestocking when I was dressed, made up and bejewelled like a screen siren was laughable enough, but Stefano’s lasciviousness was even more absurd. “I must get you a drink,” he was saying, rubbing my fingers between his own. He barked in Italian at a uniformed manservant, who hurried away. “Paulo will bring some of my father’s special champagne,” continued Stefano. “Only the best for my dear friend and his lovely cousin!”

“Gio is very generous,” said Aidan politely.

Stefano continued to study me. “Why have I not met you before? I have known Aidan since we were boys.”

Again, we were ready with our story. “Sarah and her family have been living in Canada for some years,” explained Aidan. He had assured me Stefano would not be able to tell a Welsh accent from a Canadian one, and the place where I had ostensibly lived had to be far enough away for Aidan’s cousin never to have turned up at a school event. “They have only been back six months.”