Part 12 (1/2)

Realising that no one was going to move, exposing themselves, while she was in the room, she added, 'Now, I'm starving so I'm going to make a quick meal of linguine alle vongole. Only tinned, I'm afraid. The vongole, I mean, but they're not bad. D'you want some?'

Sasha nodded doubtfully. Joe reached for his jeans, some fresh rips in the knee. His top, Gina remembered, was ruined, unwearable. She would have to find him something of Felix's, from her standby selection. He'd had some beautiful possessions but she wasn't a h.o.a.rder; she only hung onto objects of value because she never knew when she might need to cash them in.

She left them to it and set a pan of water to boil, poured a gla.s.s of white wine, chopped cloves of garlic. She opened the tin and up-ended the clams; the small jellied blobs. .h.i.t the smoking olive oil with a hiss. She threw her pasta into the pot and the wine into the clams, stirring with unnecessary vigour.

Sasha and Joe shambled out of the bedroom, more or less dressed. 'Can I do anything?' said Sasha. 'I'd really like to help.'

'Help! What you need is a big placard round your neck that reads ”Hindrance”. Just sit yourself down somewhere out of my way.' She noticed their hands creeping together for rea.s.surance and jerking apart when she banged three dishes down on the table. She drained the pasta, mixed it with the clam sauce and set the large bowl in front of them.

'What are those things?' asked Sasha.

'Vongole. I hope you're not one of those teenagers who lives off McDonalds and won't eat anything else?'

'No... not at all.'

'And you're not allergic to sh.e.l.lfish?'

'No.'

'Well, you'll be fine then. Tuck in.'

Perhaps Sasha sensed that if she didn't eat her hostess's indifferent cuisine, Gina's tolerance would wane further. She said, 'It would be brill if I could stay here tonight. I'm just waiting to hear from my dad about my return flight and then I'll clear out and hook up with Renate and Ilse. They know what happened so I won't have to do any explaining to them.'

The girl's skin was stretched purple and s.h.i.+ny across her cheekbone. Not the best advertis.e.m.e.nt, Gina had to admit, for a Roman holiday. 'I suppose what you want,' she said, 'is for me to boot Joe out so you can take over Felix's room?'

Sasha looked nonplussed. 'Felix?' She was twisting linguine around the p.r.o.ngs of her fork, but the strands kept sliding off.

Joe was shovelling food into his mouth as if it had been a long time since his last meal. 'Devo andare,' he said. 'I go.'

'Yes,' agreed Gina. 'You must.' She might have to make an exception for Sasha Mitch.e.l.l but there was no way Joe could stay another night. Such a precedent would be risky and Father Leone was already suspicious of her relations.h.i.+p with the lost boys. She knew he distrusted her motives. 'It's actually the nicer room,' she went on, 'but I'd been in mine for so long, from when I was his lodger, that I never got around to moving out.'

'His lodger? You mean he was your landlord, like Signor Boletti?'

'No, not at all like Boletti. Felix had a tenancy. He believed in spending his money on art, not property.'

Sasha had hidden some of the clams under a wodge of stuck-together pasta. She put her fork down carefully. 'I'm sorry. I thought it was, like, a spare room or a study...'

'Yes, that's why there's a desk: he taught at the university. Now it's my study too.'

'But weren't you married to him? I mean...' She was all the colours of the rainbow, blus.h.i.+ng through her freckles. 'Obviously I don't know anything about him, but...'

'No reason why you should. Only, as it happens, it wasn't that kind of a marriage.'

'Oh, I didn't realise...' She didn't give up, this girl, she had the curiosity of youth. '...I thought there was only one kind of marriage. Apart from civil partners.h.i.+ps of course. But they're same s.e.x, aren't they, and '

'Darling,' said Gina, 'You're going to find there's a lot you don't know about yet.'

PART TWO.

THE YEARS BEFORE.

14.

Five Years Earlier: 2005.

The plastic telephone cord was twisted twice around Gina's arm. Her head was tipped sideways at an awkward angle, trapping the old-fas.h.i.+oned receiver between shoulder and ear. In her left hand she held a pot of nail varnish; with her right she was painting her toenails a deep dramatic blackcurrant. She thought, if she had an activity to focus on, she could remain detached; she wouldn't experience the sense of hurtling headlong into pointless confrontation. In Rome it was seven thirty in the morning, already warm as a caress. In Santiago, she knew it would be late, but Phoebe had always been a night owl.

'A wedding?' Her voice floated astonis.h.i.+ngly clear and girlish across the thousands of miles that separated them. 'You mean, yours?'

Gina was almost certain she could hear the ice cubes cracking in her mother's gla.s.s: testimony either to the quality of satellite communication or of Phoebe's determination never to be further than six inches from a drink.

'Yes.'

'Oh darling, how marvellous!' Phoebe was of the generation who believed spinsterhood to be a curse rather than a pleasure which was why she had collected three husbands.

'I'm afraid this isn't an invitation.'

'Oh, but why shouldn't I come? I haven't been to Europe for years.'

'It's for information only.'

'Go on then, tell me about him.'

'You won't like what you hear.'

'I see...' The wheedling tone pulled itself together, became waspish. 'You're not getting mixed up in anything foolish, are you? It's not that old boyfriend of yours who nearly went to prison, is it? Gun-running or drugs or something.'

'Black market cigarettes, actually.' As if Phoebe cared; as if, dancing from one sugar daddy to another she'd given a rat's a.r.s.e what Gina got up to. Gina had never come first in her mother's life. 'Of course it isn't him.'

The ice cubes clinked together. 'So who is he?'

'His name's Felix Raven.'

'Felix and Eugenie! What a splendid combination. I've not met him, have I?'

Gina spoke to her mother about twice a year, rarely saw her more than twice a decade. 'It's possible. We've been friends a long time.'

'Oh, you know that's quite common,' said Phoebe. 'I've seen it a lot. People who've known each other for ages, or childhood sweethearts who've diverged and met up again. They realise in middle-age how much they've got in common, how nice it would be to spend the rest of their lives together. A second chance doesn't have to mean second best.'

Gina's hand was shaking, smudging the varnish. She reached for a wad of cotton wool to wipe it off and start again. Knowing already that her marriage would be short, this happy-ever-after talk was excruciating. She couldn't help snapping, 'We are not sweethearts. It's not a romance, okay? It's convenience.'

'Convenience?'

'You've already reminded me how old I am, and he's a good deal older. Perhaps when you get to thirty-nine you stop looking for love.'