Wronged Sons, The (33 page)

“Thanks for inviting us,” was all I could think to say.

“Hey, a fellow Brit!” said James, engaging me in a conversation I didn’t know how to have. I just wanted to throw my arms around him without explanation and then leave.

“Where are you from?” he continued.

“I travelled around a lot,” I replied vaguely.

“He comes from the same place as you,” chipped in Luca. I instantly regretted offering him scant details of his father’s origins.

“Northampton? No way! Small world,” replied James. “How long have you been in Italy?”

“Eighteen years or so.”

“Papa gave me my first guitar,” Luca said proudly, smiling at me.

“That’s how I got introduced to music; my dad did the same for me,” said James. “I still have it, although it’s kind of battered now. He taught me how to play Mull Of Kintyre on it, but I was pretty bad to start off.”

I swallowed hard. I hadn’t been in his life for so many years but he had remembered that. I still had a place in his memories.

“It’s at my mum’s house now. She keeps threatening to put it on eBay,” he laughed. I fixated on the words ‘she keeps.’ He used the present tense. It meant you were still alive.

“Does she still live in Northampton?” I asked without thinking.

“Yes, all her life. I don’t get the chance to go back much, but when I do I always stay at hers. Do you go home very often?”

“No, not for a long time.”

Suddenly a young woman appeared behind James, and passed him a deep red Gibson Les Paul electric guitar.

“This is for you, Luca.” He handed it to his brother, who was too lost for words to respond. “If you keep practicing hard, there’s no reason why you can’t be doing what I’m doing in a few years.”

“Grazie, grazie,” he replied breathlessly. “I promise I will look after it.”

“Don’t look after it; use it. Play it until you wear it out!”

Luca accepted the gift like Jesus had offered him a blessing and held it close to his chest. A hand tapped James on the shoulder and a man whispered in his ear.

“Luca, it was great to meet you, but I’ve gotta shoot. Email me an Mpeg when you’ve mastered the break in Find Your Way Home.”

“I will, I will.”

“Nice to meet you too… sorry I didn’t catch your first name?” he asked me.

“It’s Simon,” said Luca before I could reply.

Suddenly something happened. Something so infinitesimally small, that if you freeze-framed it on a television screen, nobody but James or I would have noticed it.

It was
recognition
.

As he shook my hand, for a fraction of a second, James’ irises expanded and his handshake lost its brawn. I knew exactly what was he was thinking. At first he asked himself if we’d met before. Then my name and place of origin made him think of his father. He allowed himself to consider that maybe he wasn’t dead after all and was standing right there before him.

He tried to recall from his youth his dad’s voice and appearance, the scent of his aftershave, the direction he parted his hair, his posture, the sound of his laugh and shape of his smile and then compared them all to the stranger before him. Then his rational side took charge and he realised his imagination had gotten the better of him. Fate didn’t work that way and he felt foolish for even considering it.

He regained his composure, his irises shrank and the strength reappeared in his grip.

“See you guys again,” he smiled and followed his assistant.

An animated Luca jumped up and down and spoke quickly, but I couldn’t hear him. Instead I watched my James walk away, turn around to give me a final, second glance, and then disappear from my life as quickly as he’d arrived.

Monte Falco, Italy

December 19, 12.30pm

My driver parked the Bentley in front of the villa and opened my rear door. I smiled at a housemaid whose name eluded me as she flirted with a handsome young handyman. I made my way to a patio that overlooked our valley of vineyards.

I searched the sky for an invisible crop duster giving off a gentle buzz. The midday crickets chirped as they rubbed their wings together in the hope of finding a mate. The horizon I once stared into so often with crystal clarity now mimicked a melted oil painting as the sun blended sky, field and lake into one.

‘This is your life Simon, not the one you walked away from,’ came a long forgotten voice. ‘That was the dream; this is your reality.’ But my reality was vacant without Luciana.

Eight months had passed since James and I breathed the same air and he was still all I thought about. And no matter how many times I’d told myself his world was a worthier place while ignorant of my existence, I was bending under the pressure of keeping myself a secret and a promise I’d made.

Everyone and everything I’d stored in secure boxes had escaped since that day. I was haunted by untethered memories that disorientated me. My darling was right when she told me I had to find all the pieces before I could find peace. Maybe then I’d feel more like my old self again.

I had to learn what had become of you and our children. You deserved to know I was still alive and what you’d done to drive me away. And there were things I also needed you to understand.

Time was running out as fate threatened to erase a life you had never known I’d lived. I was almost ready to face you.

***

Northampton, One Year Earlier

February 3, 8pm

I dreamed about you that night. I don’t know what prompted your reappearance, as you hadn’t visited me for years. But suddenly, there you were, every bit as youthful and as handsome as I remembered, standing in our garden, deadheading my pink rosebushes. Oscar was still a puppy and bounced excitedly around your bare feet.

“Why are you here?” I asked, neither upset nor delighted to see you.

You didn’t reply.

“Simon,” I repeated, firmly. “Why are you here?”

Again, nothing and I felt a sudden urge to slap you across the face and beat my fists against your chest like wronged women do in black and white films. But the moment soon passed and instead, I put my arms around your shoulders and kissed your cheek.

“Goodbye Simon,” I smiled before turning my back on you and walking away.

Then I heard your voice for the first time since you left me twenty-four years ago.

“Kitty, where are you going?” you asked, but I didn’t respond or turn around. I walked towards the kitchen and quietly closed the door behind me, upon you and upon us.

I woke up, disorientated, and just to be sure it was a dream, pulled back the curtains and glanced across an empty garden. I smiled to myself, then climbed back under the duvet, turned to my side and slid my arm across Edward’s chest.

“Is everything alright?” he mumbled.

“It’s perfect,” I replied. “Go back to sleep, doctor.”

April 15, 8pm

I likened being in remission from cancer to a soldier returning home from war. You put your life on the line to fight an unseen enemy that wants to kill you. Then if you’re lucky enough to return home in one piece, it’s a struggle to find your place in a world you left behind.

While I’d been in battle, everyone else had simply gotten on with their lives. Selena ran my businesses more than competently; the kids returned to work and no longer worried about me on a daily basis. In short, nothing had changed, except for me. I was restless. I’d accomplished so much and was ready to share it with someone else. And Dr. Edward Lewis was the someone who wanted to come along for the ride.

The day he told me my radiotherapy had been successful, I asked him to join me for dinner.

“You must have received plenty of offers from single women,” I asked over our meal at a posh fish supper in town.

“I suppose so, and not all of them single,” he blushed. “But I usually politely decline.”

“Should I be flattered then?”

He smiled. “Actually I had no interest in meeting anyone, even platonically. I felt blessed to have had twenty-seven years married to a wonderful woman, and probably didn’t deserve a second chance.”

“If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s that we’re all entitled to a second chance. Why did you change your mind?”

“Not once during your treatment did I hear you feeling sorry for yourself. You showed strength and courage and I could see what a good person you were by how much your children adored you.”

“Oh I had my moments.”

“We all have our moments. But you and I don’t give in to them for long.”

Hook line and sinker, I had fallen for Edward. Our fledgling courtship went from back to front. He’d already seen me feeling my worst, looking my least attractive and knocking on death’s door. Yet it hadn’t put him off.

Gradually our dinner dates became more frequent, and any time we spent apart, I wanted to be near him. He was charming, attentive and had a sense of adventure and spontaneity. He made me feel like I carried no baggage and like me, he discovered he enjoyed having a companion.

His late wife, Pamela, had died suddenly of a heart attack some six years earlier, and he’d taken to life as a widower awkwardly. He was bitter they’d been robbed of an early retirement together, making up for the years they were separated by his work while she raised their sons Richard and Patrick. With one studying Economics at Cambridge and the other working in finance in the Netherlands, he admitted his days were too long as an ‘only.’ I knew only too well how that felt. I’d lived it for twenty-four years.

I introduced him to my children, but this time as Edward and not as Dr Lewis. And slowly our families integrated, as he became a regular fixture around our dining table.

He’d brought me back to life not once, but twice.

Six Months Earlier

December 19, 8.40am

A dark grey car with tinted windows and a lot of doors pulled up outside the cottage six days before Christmas. A firm rap at the front door made the ivy wreath shudder. Before me, a young, uniformed driver with a grey peaked cap clutched tightly under his arm handed me an envelope.

‘Your suitcase is under the bed,’ a note in Edward’s handwriting read. ‘Pack enough warm clothes for a week. You only have thirty minutes. All my love, Edward.’

“Where am I going?” I asked the driver, bemused.

“I’m not at liberty to say, madam,” he smiled. “But I’m under strict instructions to get you there on time.”

My work and family had made me an expert in timetable juggling and forward planning. So spontaneity wasn’t something I was entirely used to until Edward came along. Whether it was supper on a hired canal boat or golfing lessons in Gleneagles, he loved his little last minute surprises. So as I scrambled around for suitable clothes, I texted Emily to warn her I was off on another of Edward’s jollies.

An hour and a half later, we pulled up outside Heathrow’s Terminal Four. Edward stood waiting for me with his suitcase by the revolving doors. He grinned.

“Where are we going then?” I asked, still none the wiser.

“To visit Holly,” he replied and pointed to the flight destination board. When I saw where we were headed, I threw my arms around him like a child meeting Father Christmas for the first time.

*

I’d wanted to visit New York ever since I was a little girl. I’d watched ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ a dozen times; it was the only film mum had ever taken me to. And I grew up wishing I could have Holly Golightly’s carefree life, instead of the glum one my parents had thrown at me.

My friends’ bedroom walls were plastered with posters of The Beatles and Elvis, but mine were decorated with black and white postcards of Audrey Hepburn. I’d pretend she was my long lost big sister and while I followed her every move in the newspapers, mum found inspiration in her wardrobe.

Looking back on it, I’m sure people must have laughed behind her back as she sauntered through the village wearing her designer scarves and stylish hats even in the height of summer. But she didn’t care, and it was one of the few things about her I actually admired. Audrey offered us both an escape and you couldn’t understand why I cried for a week when she died.

And whether it was because ‘Breakfast At Tiffany’s’ was the only piece of herself mum had ever given away, or the lure of a magical city across the pond that had more love to offer than my parents, it was a place I’d fantasised about most of my life.

I’d never found the time to go, or maybe I was just scared it might not live up to my little girl’s expectations. But Edward never accepted a packed diary or the fear of disappointment as excuses for not following a dream.

*

We’d not even had time to unpack before he whisked me off to Fifth Avenue’s Tiffany & Co. It was every bit as timeless as I’d imagined it. I didn’t think my day could be any more perfect until I peered through glass cupboard doors and tried on sparkling bracelets and necklaces displayed on robin egg blue boxes. But typically, Edward found a way of making it even better.

He ushered me into the centre of the shop floor, held both my hands and cleared his throat as the room hushed.

“What are you doing?” I asked, feeling my face redden.

“I never thought I’d ever ask this question again. But Catherine, will you do me the honour of being my wife?”

My eyes opened so wide I thought they might pop.

“Yes, of course,” I sobbed as staff and customers began a ripple of applause around us.

“We are ready for you, Dr Lewis,” smiled a manager in a smart tailored suit and he led us upstairs into a viewing room. Row after row of twinkling rings had been laid before us on dark cushions like stars across our own private universe.

“I don’t believe in long engagements, so why don’t you choose your wedding ring instead?” suggested Edward.

I wasn’t going to argue. And after much deliberation, I chose a platinum cobblestone-band diamond ring that simply cried out for my finger. And once placed inside a box and Tiffany’s iconic bag, I skipped out of the shop and floated back to our hotel leaving a twenty-four carat chunk missing from the Big Apple.