Christmas at Claridge's (49 page)

‘Wishing for what?’ he cried.

She could scarcely get the words out. ‘For a family.’

Her eyelids fluttered lightly, her vision blurred, and she tried to move, still drowsy and heavy-headed from the blunt-edged oblivion that had claimed her. She hadn’t
slept, she had simply dropped away into a fathomless black hole where there was no pain, no light, no horror, no yesterday.

‘Luca!’ she gasped, sitting bolt upright in the bed she’d been sleeping in and sending her heart rate rocketing.

‘He’s OK. They kept him in hospital overnight for observation,’ Gabriel said, turning from his position by the window. The sunlight beyond the window backlit him, and she could
see his silhouette through the fine cotton of his pale blue shirt. ‘They’ll let him out today.’

Clem looked at him, bewildered. She had no recollection of what had happened after Luca had been airlifted to hospital and she was surprised to find herself in bed, in their room.

Outside the folly, the day looked crisp and clear, blown through, making a mockery of the memories of the night before.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, watching as she pushed away the duvet a little. She was surprised to find it was one of three layered on top of her. ‘You couldn’t stop
shivering last night. The doctor said you had mild hypothermia.’

‘Oh.’

‘Your colour has improved.’

Clem lay back on the pillows, wondering why he was staying at the window, so far away from her. She sensed a change between them. He seemed distant somehow, newly reserved as he fiddled with his
cuffs. She tried to remember the minutiae of the previous day’s events – the argument they had been on the verge of having the moment before Luca’s disappearance – but so
much had happened since then, and only one thing mattered: Luca was safe.

‘Is everything all right, Gabriel?’

He looked straight at her. ‘After what happened last night? How can it be?’

He turned away again, one hand on the wall, and she watched his back expand and narrow with slow, deep breaths. He had nearly lost her. It had been traumatic for him, too. She had defied him and
dived into the black water even as he’d begged her not to; she had disregarded his heart for hers, and she would do it all over again in a heartbeat if needs be. As far as she was concerned,
there wasn’t even a choice.

‘What you said . . .’

She watched him impassively. What had she said?

He turned back again, leaning against the wall. ‘At least now I understand.’

She didn’t reply; it was hard to focus on his words. The lingering chill of the midnight water had begun to creep up on her again and she pulled the duvet back around her shoulders.
Whenever she closed her eyes for a fraction too long, she saw the black murk of the churning depths again, Luca’s thin arm a milky glow in the gloom. The fear of losing him clung to her
still, an odourless stench that drenched her with horror and made her heart quake.

‘I can actually see it now: the resemblance. He’s got your nose and bones.’ He shook his head. ‘Tom’s smile. And he does that thing with his tongue when he’s
concentrating – like you.’

‘Gabriel, what are you talking about?’

He looked back at her in astonishment, as though he hadn’t counted upon this response. ‘Are you really going to deny it? Even after you said the words yourself?’

A new fear was filling her, and it was every bit as terrifying as the black water. ‘What did I say?’

Gabriel stared at her for a long, drawn-out moment, his adoration for her still spelled out on his features, though the purity had gone, his feelings clouded now by what he had learned.
‘You said he was your boy. Clem, I know that Luca is your son.’

A silent, violent sob escaped her. Hearing the words spoken out loud – for the first time in her life – was like bringing a sledgehammer down onto a frozen pond, and she didn’t
know whether the deep cracks splintering through her were pleasure or pain. Relief, terror, isolation, years of conditioning – all of it collided inside her as if she were inside a rolling
car, being thrown and tossed, crumpled, battered . . . broken down.

He looked away, tormented by the anguish he saw in her. ‘I know you were young,’ he managed, his voice heavy with torment and what this meant for them.

Her breath came in silent hiccups, sudden and snatched, unpredictable, unreliable. ‘Yes.’

‘Eighteen.’

‘Yes.’

He dropped his head. ‘Too young.’

She bit her lip, feeling the same rush of anger she’d felt when she’d heard those words more than ten years earlier. ‘Well, my mother certainly thought so.’

Her sarcasm changed the tone, the pace. ‘But you didn’t.’

‘Of course I did! But I didn’t want an abortion either. I knew who I was, even at eighteen. I knew what I could and couldn’t live with.’

‘Yet you could live with leaving your child to be raised by another family? In another country? You could live with
that
?’ he asked in disbelief, and she knew he thought she
was a monster.

‘Just.’ She swallowed hard as the familiar pressure at her temples began to build. ‘Because I knew it was the best thing for him.’

Gabriel shook his head, deplored by her actions, confounded by the decisions she’d made, the secret she’d kept. ‘Why
here?
Why did you bring him all the way out here
to be raised as an Italian child, to speak a different language? Why didn’t you at least keep him in England where you—?’

‘Because none of it was planned, Gabriel!’ she screamed, enraged by his cool logic, his superior judgement. ‘Because he was born six weeks early, OK? I had to come out here for
my exchange trip, because I had to behave as normal. No one fucking knew! No one!’

‘You said your mother—’

‘My mother knew jack-shit! She gave me an ultimatum: have an abortion or get out. She thought I did it!’

‘But . . . how could you hide something like that?’

‘Oh! What? You think it’s so hard? You’d be
amazed
what teenage girls can get away with. Baggy clothes, puppy fat . . . I barely had a bump, my muscles were so tight.
It was almost easy!’

He stared at her, his eyes darting over her face, trying to keep up with the story that took a twist with every answer. ‘But Chiara . . .? If she was your pen pal, why would she take Luca
for you? She would hardly have known you. It doesn’t make sense.’

Clem fell silent. ‘It does when you know her. She’s the best person I’ve ever met.’

Clem sank back into the pillow, her voice lower as she stepped back into the memories. ‘There was a storm that night, too, just like last night’s. She had heard the gate banging and
she went to investigate; she found me moments after Luca was born. She was amazing, completely calm – well, after a couple of minutes anyway. She took total control of the situation. I was .
. .’ She shrugged, unable to condense the feelings down to one word. ‘Delirious. Frightened that it had happened so early, and so far from home, but so happy, too. He was strong, I
could sense it immediately, even though he was so small.’ She blinked, looking down at her empty cupped hands. ‘So small.’

A beat pulsed. ‘What did Chiara do?’

Clem looked up at him, as though pulled from a trance. ‘She gave him to her mother.’

The words clanged around the room as if they had bells attached. She was monstrous again.

‘You handed them Luca and they took him? Just like that?’

‘No! Not just like that! They spent the week begging me to take him back with me . . .’ Her voice faded. ‘But there was no way I could go back home with a baby in my arms.
I’d have had no home for him. My mother had made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t prepared to start on the babysitting rotas just yet. She would have thrown me out on the
streets.’ She began to sob, decade-old anger choking her even now.

Gabriel walked to the foot of the bed in silence. ‘Why did Chiara’s parents keep him? They could have put him up for adoption for you.’

‘Because they wanted me to have a way back to him. They were good people; they made the mistake of thinking I was good, too.’ Her eyes flicked towards him, dully. ‘They
believed I would come back for him when I could.’ She was quiet for a long moment. ‘They weren’t entirely selfless; Chiara’s an only child. Her parents had tried for years
to have another baby, but Rosa kept miscarrying. She was older; they’d given up trying . . .’ Clem shrugged. ‘They decided to say he was an orphan of their cousins’ and they
were raising him.’ Her voice broke and she raised her hand to her mouth, trying desperately to keep control. ‘I knew they would love him . . . I named him and nursed him for as long as
I was there . . . I didn’t sleep at all that week. I couldn’t bear to close my eyes and lose a minute with him.’ Her voice cracked again and her lungs gasped for air with the same
urgency as they had when she’d broken the surface of the water the night before. ‘Chiara wrote to me all the time, keeping me informed of every milestone: when he first walked, his
first word, his favourite toy . . . She sent pictures.’ She thought of the letters in the silk envelope, which had sustained her for all these years.

‘But you never saw Luca yourself? Not once, in all that time?’

She shook her head vehemently. ‘I couldn’t take the risk. Leaving him behind was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.’ The tears fell harder again and her entire
body contracted as the sobs heaved her body like waves in a storm. ‘I thought I was going to die. Rosa gave me a tranquillizer to help me get on the plane. She had bad arthritis so . . .
There wasn’t a day when I didn’t think of him.’

Gabriel sat on the bed beside her, his warm hands finding hers as he tried to understand. ‘Why didn’t you go back for him?’

She stared up at him through blinded eyes. ‘How could I
?
It sounds so easy in principle but in reality . . . Rosa was his mother by then, Chiara his sister, this was his
home. He didn’t speak any English . . . He was happy here. How could I take him away from all that just because I wanted him with me?’

‘But what you must have gone through . . .’

‘It was the right thing for him.’ Clem sobbed. ‘That was all that mattered.’

‘My darling,’ Gabriel murmured, pulling her into him so that her face was buried in his neck, soaking his skin with warm tears. He stroked her hair as she wept, her shoulders
trembling beneath his jaw. Finally, he pulled back, tipping her head up to his. ‘I’m so sorry I forced you back here.’

‘I’m not.’ She blinked, her eyes refilling instantly every time, the tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Even as I said no to Tom, part of me knew I would go. I was so
frightened, but at the same time, just the thought of it made me feel alive again. As soon as the thought was planted, I couldn’t hold back any more. I told myself I’d be able to cope
with it, that it was worth the risk.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I fell apart when I saw him for the first time. I felt as though he could tell, as if he could see right through
me.’

Gabriel rubbed her hand, watching her closely. ‘But he didn’t.’

She shook her head. ‘I was so terrified of him to begin with.’ A tiny, disbelieving laugh escaped her as she thought back to their first meetings. ‘I could hardly speak to him.
But . . . but then I got to know him’ – her voice was as soft as fur – ‘and I fell in love with him all over again.’

‘And you’re prepared to leave him
again
?’

It would have been kinder to punch her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, her face scrunched tight with pain. ‘I have to.’ She wept. ‘If there’s one thing being here has
shown me, it’s that I
did
do the right thing. He’s had a much better life here than I could have given him. He’s happy! But the longer I stay here, the more I run the
risk of him finding out who I really am. I have to go, Gabriel, for his sake.’

Gabriel nodded. ‘We can leave tonight if you wish.’

Clem stiffened, a small vein of disgust opening somewhere inside her that he’d answered too quickly, was too ready to whisk her away from her child and restore her as his alone.

But it wasn’t just that. He knew everything now, but he still didn’t understand. It wasn’t just Luca he was competing with.

‘No . . .’ she faltered.

‘You want to wait a few days to make sure he is OK?’

She couldn’t reply. She stared up at him through full eyes again. She may have broken her twelve-week rule for him, but it hadn’t meant anything after all; it really was just an
arbitrary number that had kept things tidy, neatly glossing over the messy truth that no one else would ever be enough. Her heart had never been in danger of being broken by him, or by any of the
others, simply because her heart wasn’t hers to give.

Gabriel recoiled in understanding as she remained silent. ‘But the ring – you changed hands?’

‘That was a misunderstanding, I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I never intended for you to think it meant more.’

He blinked at her, fear running through the eyes that had made a prisoner of her for a while. ‘The passion between us—’

‘It’s amazing, I know. But it always is. That’s all it ever is. It’s what I do. It’s how I . . .’

‘Hide?’ He got up from the bed, pacing to the window, anger suddenly prowling through his body like a cat in the night.

She swallowed, remembering Chiara’s words that night in the kitchen when they’d been washing up; how she’d seen through Clem’s bluff of using one man to get over
another.’ . . . cope. It’s how I cope. It’s just a game; it’s not . . . it’s not . . .’ She couldn’t say it.

‘Not love?’ he finished for her. ‘No! How can it be when you’re still in love with
him
?’

The room echoed with silence. They both knew to whom he was referring, but that wasn’t what had caught Clem’s attention.

Still?

‘How did you know that I ever loved him?’ she asked, pale.

He turned his face away, a twitchy irritated gesture loaded with pride. ‘I am right, aren’t I?’ he demanded, ignoring her question.

She knew he had been suspicious of Rafa’s antagonistic behaviour towards her – didn’t they always say the line between love and hate is a thin one? – but there was no way
Gabriel could know about her past with him. Chiara had never known, so it wasn’t in the letters she had hidden so carefully in the mattress. But if he knew that they had had a past . . .