More Than You Know (59 page)

She was almost late in the end to pick up Coral at the gates. She drove her home and found poor Heather coming out of the lavatory looking green.

“Sorry,” she said. “Still can’t stop being sick.”

“Don’t apologize, you silly girl. Has the man been?”

“No, not yet. He—”

A man appeared on the stairs just below them.

“Mrs. Connell? I’ve got a note there’s some problem with the toilet. What would that be, then? Perfectly all right when I left last time.”

“It’s the same problem,” said Heather. “It’s leaking.”

“That’s very odd. I’ll have another look, but—God, it stinks in here.”

“Yes, it does,” said Eliza, shooing Heather back into the flat, shutting the door on her. “That’s because it’s not flushing properly. The whole system needs replacing.”

He dumped his bag of tools on the floor.

“Qualified plumber, are you?”

“No. I just know faulty workmanship when I see it.”

“You’ve no right to say that. This toilet was perfectly all right when I left it. These people”—he gestured at Heather’s door—“misuse things. Don’t clean up properly.”

“I very much doubt that. This lavatory is used by four families; it needs to be in proper working order.”

“Oh, yeah? You one of them?”

“No,” said Eliza, “I’m not. But I do know that binding a cracked pipe with a dirty cloth is hardly a long-term solution.”

“OK,” he said, picking up his tool bag again, “you fix it then, since you’re so clever.”

Eliza felt slightly panicky; she seemed to be depriving the tenants of even minimum attention to their problem.

“Look,” she said, “who do you work for; who’s your boss? Couldn’t you get him to authorise a proper repair?”

“My instructions are to do what’s needed,” he said, “and that’s what I do. Now, am I going to be allowed to get on with it, or are you going to stand there telling me my bloody job?”

“Yes,” said Eliza hastily. “Yes, of course you must do what you can.”

For the first time in her life, she had seen for herself the total indifference shown by the powerful towards the powerless; it shocked her.

“That is just so … so dreadful. I can’t believe it. Please, please tell me it’s not true.”

“Why so dreadful? It will be fun; we will all have a lovely time together.”

“But—”

“I thought you would be pleased—”

“Mariella, how can I be pleased? Jeremy … here, in Milan! And not just here, but having dinner with us. I feel like not coming …”

“Eliza.” Mariella’s voice took on a tone of steely determination. “Eliza, of course you must come. It will seem very, very rude if you do not. Timothy Fordyce and his wife, Janey, it is they who are taking us to dinner. And do you really want to miss Callas? All Milan will be there—it is such a wonderful occasion—”

“All Milan and a bloody Englishman.” Eliza hesitated. All that was going to happen was that she would see Jeremy again and it would be fun.

“Sorry, Mariella,” she said. “I’m being stupid. It sounds lovely. But can we go shopping? I need some better shoes. And do you really think what I’ve got is grand enough?”

“For Jeremy?”

“No, of course not. For La Scala.”

“Eliza, Le Smoking by Yves Saint Laurent is smart enough for anywhere. I wanted one for myself, but it does not suit my shape. You will look extremely chic. But yes, perhaps some new very, very high heels. We will go this afternoon. We will leave Emmie behind, I think, with Anna-Maria.”

Alone in her palace of a room, unpacking Emmie’s things, she wondered why she was so horrified at the prospect of seeing Jeremy. It wasn’t as if she’d dumped him last week. And he hadn’t given everything up in his
grief and gone to live in a monastery. He was a hugely successful corporate figure: CEO of KPD New York. And still extremely rich.

Of course, it would never have worked if she had married him. There had never been any real fire in their relationship (she tried not to think of the problems the fire in her relationship with Matt had caused).

What was worrying her was how she might feel about Jeremy after all this time, whether there might, in fact, be more of a fire than she thought.

And however much she loved Matt—and she did; she did—the magic had inevitably faded. There had to be an easing of emotion, a blunting of desire, however strong the relationship might be, and you would hardly be human if you didn’t welcome, however briefly, the dance of a flirtation, the disturbance of an attraction, the flickering of intrigue.

Jeremy could clearly offer that, and that was unsettling. Not to mention scary. Very scary indeed.

“No! No, I won’t. I want to come with you. I don’t want to play with Anna-Maria. I want to go shopping. Why can’t I come? I’ll be really, really good.”

“Emmie—” Eliza stopped. There was no reasoning with Emmie when she was in this mood. “Well, look. If we take you today, will you promise to be very, very good? And then maybe we can take you for hot chocolate and a pastry afterwards. But I don’t want any complaining, Emmie. Is that a deal?”

Emmie understood deals. She smiled at her mother, a sweet, gentle smile, the huge dark blue eyes innocently wide. “It’s a deal.”

Milan, getting ready for Christmas, was at its fairy-tale best: strung with lights across the street and down the lampposts, the shop windows rich and luscious, gold and silver settings for sparkling evening dresses, glittering rich-colored jewels. Especially wonderful to Eliza’s eyes were the food stores: butchers’ displays of boar, deer, hare, hanging pheasants still in their fine feathers, fruit and vegetable stalls stacked high, and the patisseries, their windows works of art, and on every corner
flower stalls offering huge, ready-dressed bouquets and great bowls and vases of roses, lilies, and lush, thick greenery. For Milan, Christmas was the winter solstice, the ancient Roman feast day—less sentimental than London, with its endless Santa Clauses and galloping reindeer, more adult, more concerned with sensual pleasure.

Even the Nativity scenes in windows or in front of churches were works of art, beautifully carved, life-size shepherds, wise men, Mary and Joseph and the baby.

Everyone was in furs, leopard, sables, and mink, with huge fox-fur collars, and even mink collars on the cashmere and camel coats of the men.

And woven into this dazzling throng were the Gypsies, hundreds of them, raggedy and dirty with their sleeping babies—“They are drugged,” Mariella said disdainfully—thrusting sprigs of heather, muttering curses. Some sat on pavements and in doorways; the Milanese stepped round or over them, never breaking off from their conversations for a moment, or handing over any money.

Emmie skipped along wide-eyed between Mariella and her mother, the faithful Anna-Maria trailing along behind.

“Can I have some new shoes?” asked Emmie. “I want black patent ones, with square ends. Like Katy’s.”

“Who is Katy?” asked Mariella.

“She’s my best friend. At the moment.”

“Do you often change your best friends?”

“Yes. Lots of times.”

“Good girl. I also.”

“Is Mummy your best friend at the moment?”

“But of course. And whenever I see her. She is a very good best friend, your mother.”

“Mine too. At the moment,” said Emmie.

They passed the dazzling windows of La Rinascente; Emmie’s eyes glowed.

“Can we go in there?”

“No, we’re going to buy my shoes,” said Eliza.

“Please!”

“Emmie,” said Eliza warningly.

“But it’s fun in there.”

Mariella spoke to Anna-Maria, who nodded and grasped Emmie’s hand.

“Emmie,
carina
, you go with Anna-Maria; she will take you round the store. We will meet you in one hour in Cova and you shall have a
millefoglie
. You will like that very much.”

“But I want you to come—”

Mariella’s eyes became nail-hard, and Anna-Maria pulled at Emmie’s hand. Eliza had seen the look.

“Emmie! Remember the deal.”

“OK.”

An hour and several dizzyingly high-heeled shoes later, they walked, swinging the bags and giggling, to Cova.

“Now. Where are they? Not here yet, I think.”

“No.” Eliza felt a slight heave of anxiety.

“We will order the
cioccolata
and the
millefoglie
,” said Mariella, sinking down at a table, “and they will be here very soon—Ah, here is Anna-Maria now.”

Anna-Maria, yes: a white-faced, wild-eyed Anna-Maria. Alone. No Emmie.

She rushed up to Mariella, spoke through almost hysterical sobs. The slight heave in Eliza’s stomach became a major turbulence. Mariella turned to her. She spoke carefully and slowly.

“It seems Anna-Maria cannot … cannot find Emmie. She said she was there one minute and gone the next. In a very short time.”

Gone. A five-year-old, in the middle of a foreign city. Where she didn’t speak the language. A city teeming with people, where a child could be … could be …

“God,” she said, and again, “God.” She thought she might be sick.
Don’t panic, Eliza; Italians love children; little girls don’t get lost in the middle of the afternoon in broad …
Only it wasn’t broad daylight; it was dusk, almost dark.