More Than You Know (45 page)

And every day it got worse—and Emmie was not quite two.

“No, no, no, no, no,” the familiar, almost daily tantrum would begin.

“I’m sorry, but yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Now, do what I say.”

“No!” The blue eyes blazed; a small foot stamped, hard, on the ground.

“Emmie, stop it. At once. If you won’t wear your coat, you’re not going.”

“I don’t want to go.”

“I don’t care. You’re going.”

“I’m not.” And she drew in her breath and held it, her eyes fixed on her mother in defiance, her face slowly turning bright red.

It was the stuff of nightmares.

Emmie could be neither coaxed nor threatened; she did what she wanted, and if anyone tried to stop her, she seemed prepared to die in the attempt. She had once made herself lose consciousness by holding her breath; she was equally capable of going on hunger strike and not eating for as long as it took. The longest she had managed was two and a half days, after which, of course, it had been Eliza who had cracked,
afraid Emmie would become ill from lack of nourishment. Matt, who found the whole thing rather annoyingly amusing, said that Emmie was far too greedy to go seriously hungry; but then, he didn’t have to see her growing, if not faint, certainly a bit listless.

On the other hand, she was an enchanting child when things were to her liking; she was affectionate, interesting, and lively, her speech advanced and her manners charming—she shared her toys with a generous maturity that surprised Eliza, given that she was an only child. She just liked to do things her way.

Sandra advised depriving her of things she did want to do.

“Sandra,” said Eliza, “she doesn’t want to do anything as much as getting her own way.”

She wondered whether having another baby would help. Matt was very keen, but she wasn’t sure whether she would be able to cope.

“Supposing she took against the baby; then what would I do? Nightmare.”

“She won’t,” said Matt cheerfully. “She’s not like that. I think we should go for it, Eliza; she’ll be at least three at this rate, and that’s a big gap.”

Eliza stopped taking the pill for a couple of months, then panicked as Emmie’s behaviour worsened, and went back on it.

“I don’t care how big the gap is, Matt; I’ll be in a loony bin at this rate by the time I have the baby, and then what will you do?”

“Bring them in to join you,” said Matt jovially.

She missed Charles dreadfully. She had seen him only a handful of times over the previous year and a half, at family gatherings, and he had seemed distant, reluctant to be alone with her. They had had lunch at her insistence, but he had been wary of any attempt to get him to open up to her.

“I just don’t know what to do about it,” said Eliza to Maddy. “I know there’s something wrong, but he won’t talk to me. We’ve only been to the new house once, and then there’s another thing: I’d have thought they’d have had a baby by now; Juliet was so keen, and Charles is besotted by Emmie.”

“Well, maybe that’s it,” said Maddy. “Maybe she’s just not getting pregnant, and they’re depressed about it, and don’t want everyone asking them all the time.”

“Maybe. I don’t know, Maddy; my whole life is filled with things I can’t sort out. Charles, my parents, that little fiend I’ve given birth to. God when I think how a couple of empty pages seemed like a problem—I didn’t know what worry was.”

Scarlett was at Athens airport with two hours to kill and realised she had nothing to read. The news kiosk yielded a lot of Greek books and newspapers, but she did finally manage to find one out-of-date copy of the English newsmagazine
Time and Tide
. She ordered herself a coffee and sat down in the departure lounge, and was flicking through the magazine when she saw quite a long article on Venice. Venice, which she knew and loved so well …

She started to read the piece and found herself instantly and extraordinarily there, and not just in the spectacular set pieces of St. Mark’s Square and the Grand Canal, but exploring the narrow backstreets, wandering from one
bacari
(the small bars that are Venice’s speciality) to the next, growing slowly tipsier, discovering the lesser-known churches, like the lyrical marble San Giorgio Maggiore best viewed by moonlight, and combing the flea market in the Campo San Maurizio. It was an extraordinary piece of writing.

She looked for the writer’s name, thinking she must find more of his—or her—work, and saw the article listed at the front of the magazine—by one Mark Frost.

“Oh, my God,” said Scarlett aloud, and gazing at her intently from the title page, there he was, complete with wire-framed spectacles, floppy dark hair, and extremely solemn expression. “Mark Frost,” it said, “one of the finest travel writers around today, and author of
My Favourite Train Journeys
, gives his unique and vivid take on one of his favourite cities, Venice.”

Geographical research indeed! Well, she supposed it was, in a way.

“Now, look, Eliza, and don’t start cutting up rough, please, but I’m going to have to cancel our trip.”

“You what! Oh, Matt, no. Please, please, no. I’ve been looking forward to it for so long.”

“I know, I know, and so have I. But we’re having trouble with this second development, the one out Swindon way, and I just can’t be away at the moment. Look, I’m sorry. I could go mid-November.”

“For Lord’s sake, Matt, I am just so sick of playing second lead to your work.”

She went out of the room slamming the door, her eyes full of tears. Tears of anger and disappointment. She had done so much these two years, tried so hard to be good, and this was his way of thanking her. A fortnight in the sun, he had promised her, well, a week in the sun in Bermuda, straddled by a few days either side in New York; she couldn’t remember when she had looked forward to anything so much.

She went to bed in the spare room that night; when Matt knocked on the door tentatively sometime after midnight, saying he was sorry, and he loved her, more than more than, and please to come to bed and let him prove it, she told him to fuck off.

She was still fuming in the morning when Mariella phoned, and so she poured out her story, tearful and angry still. Mariella’s reaction was predictable.

“You can come and have a holiday with me,
cara
. I would love it, Giovanni would love it, it is beautiful here in September, and we can do some shopping; I can show you my beloved Milan—”

“Oh, God, Mariella, it sounds wonderful. But I’d have to bring Emmie.”

“But of course you must bring her. There are plenty of people here to help, and we can buy her a new chic wardrobe from Milan.”

“Oh, it sounds so tempting. Are you really, really sure?”

“But of course I am sure. Tell me when, and I will be ready for you. And we can teach the
bambina
to speak Italian.
Ciao, bella
.”

“
Ciao
, Mariella. Love to Giovanni.”

“No,” said Matt, “no, sorry, that is not acceptable. I don’t want my child left in the care of a lot of wops.”

“What makes you think I’m leaving her in the care of anyone? And don’t use that disgusting word.”

“And who is going to look after me while you’re away?”

“You can look after your fucking self, Matt. I’m going.”

Eliza had stayed in a great many beautiful houses in her life, and done photographic shoots in many more, but in nothing quite as splendid as the Villa d’Arice. Set in incredible gardens right on the shores of Lake Como, it was actually a small palace, built in 1600, in a style that could only be described as fantasy-classical. As Mariella’s (surprisingly modest) Fiat 600—“Italian ladies don’t drive big smart cars on their own”—drew up in front of it, Eliza let out a yelp of pleasure.

A great white edifice, it was four storeys high, pillared and columned and balconied, with the lake shining before it and the mountains brooding beyond.

Mariella had met them at the airport and chattered the entire way to the villa. Giovanni was standing on the steps to greet them, immaculately dressed in slacks and a blazer, his handsome old face smiling. A beige standard poodle sat on either side of him; Mariella’s small white poodle, Pucci, was running to the car. It would have made, Eliza thought, a wonderful fashion shot.

“Eliza,
cara
. Welcome to our home. And this is the
bambina
! Oh, she is so beautiful.” He reached out a thin brown hand to stroke Emmie’s cheek, murmuring to her in Italian; Emmie smiled at him, enchanted.

The entrance hall was immense, marbled and chandeliered, with a staircase of great grace and grandeur rising from it; Giovanni led them down an arched corridor opening on one side onto formal gardens, and into a smaller but exquisite
salone
, with a low table set with tea and a display of sandwiches and pastries that would not have disgraced the Ritz. Emmie made for the food, her large blue eyes shining.

“Emmie! No,” said Eliza, but a smiling girl in a black dress and white apron moved forward, took Emmie’s other hand, and led her to a chair, where she took her on her knee, swathed her in a large napkin, and fed her the cake in bite-size pieces, tenderly wiping her face free of chocolate between each one.

“This is Anna-Maria,” Mariella said. “She will be helping you with Emmie all the time you are here. She comes with very good … good reviews.”

“References?” said Eliza.

“Yes, perhaps. I hope that will be all right. Of course, if you would rather not …”

Eliza, feeling she had suddenly come home, said it was very much all right.

They dined, the three of them, in a room overlooking the lake, dark now, shot with thousands of lights, and the clear sky with millions of stars. Mariella had popped her head into Eliza’s room as she was getting ready and told her that although Anna-Maria would sit with Emmie during the evening, if Eliza preferred, she could be with them. Eliza said she would much prefer it if Emmie was not with them and that she was already fast asleep.

“
Bene
. Then we can all have a very lovely dinner. Very, very informal,
cara
; do not dress up.”