The Scarlet Thread (22 page)

“We're not saying anything yet,” Steven answered. “He's going back to school. It's a busy time for him. He's got his studies to think about. There'll be time enough. But we wanted you to know the situation.”

“I think that's very wise,” he said. “If I were him, I wouldn't be pleased to find out I'd been told a lot of lies.” He gave his daughter an accusing look. He was thinking of his grandson. What they did with their own lives was their business, but he wouldn't countenance their upsetting the boy. “God knows what your mother would have made of it all,” he announced, and having stuffed his pipe, he began to puff hard as he held the match to the bowl. Angela was wearing a big green stone on her left hand. He didn't know what it was. He wasn't much on gemstones, and the thing was too large to be anything he would recognize.

“How are you going to live?” he asked Steven that night, while Charlie helped his mother wash up the dinner dishes. “Do you have a job over here?”

“Not yet,” Steven answered. “But there's no need to worry. I've got assets.”

“Depends,” Hugh Drummond muttered. “Most shares bring in a pittance these days. As for government bonds … biggest damn swindle, if you ask me. We all bought them to be patriotic.”

Steven was glad Angela wasn't there. He understood the old man's need to ask questions, but he had a need of his own to answer them. She would have been embarrassed.

“I'm worth over a million dollars in stocks and bonds, and I have property in the States worth more,” he said.

“Good God!” Angela's father stared at him. “Good God. Have you really?”

“Really,” Steven echoed him. “So like I said, you don't need to worry. I can take care of them.”

“I should think so,” was the answer. “Nice to know anyway. I've left this house and whatever I've got to my grandson. Angela's got a bit from her mother, but I wanted Charlie to have something behind him. He won't need it now, I suppose.”

“He'll need it,” Steven answered. “He'll be proud to have it because it came from you. He talks a lot about you.”

“Does he?” The old man smiled with pleasure. “Does he indeed? I think the world of him. He's a fine chap in every way. Straight as a die. And clever too. He'll do well, make no mistake.”

At the door of her single room, Angela held out her arms to him. “This is a nuisance, I know,” she said. “But it can't be helped. It's only till Charlie goes back to school.”

He held her close. “I can wait,” he whispered. “So long as it's not too long. It wasn't as bad as you thought, was it?”

“No. I'd imagined all kinds of reactions from my father. He can be very difficult. He's mellowed a lot, and all he really cares about is Charlie. But he was good about it, and you were wonderful with him. Thank you, darling.”

“I'm used to old people,” he said. “We're brought up to respect them. It's important to us. Did you see our boy's face when we said we were both taking him back to school?”

“Yes.” Angela nodded. “He was thrilled. When shall we tell him?”

“Tomorrow,” Steven said. “I'll tell him. But I guess he knows already.”

“I'm going down to get some groceries for your mother,” Steven announced. “How about coming along?” As they walked back toward the house from the High Street, Steven said, “There's something I want to tell you.”

The boy looked up at him. “About you and Mum?”

“We're going to get married, Charlie. Would you like that?”

“Gosh, I'll be thrilled skinny!” There was no flicker of doubt, no hesitation. His smile was a delighted grin. “I thought you might when you turned up on the plane. It's super news. Just super!”

“I want to make your mother very happy,” Steven Falconi said. “And I want to be a father to you, Charlie, if you'll let me.”

For a moment his son looked shy. There was a little color in his cheeks that was close to a blush. “It's felt a bit like that already,” he said. “I hope you don't mind.”

“I don't mind,” Steven said. “It's what I want most of all.”

If they hadn't been walking along a damp English country street with grocery bags in their arms, he'd have taken his son in his arms and embraced him.

They drove back to London from the school at Highfields. Steven had been introduced to everyone as “Mr. Falconi, my stepfather.” The headmaster congratulated them and asked them in for a glass of sherry. It was a strange world to Steven, with a code of conduct that was so alien to him that he might have been among Martians. He sipped the bad sherry and answered the predictable questions about how he liked England and where he came from in the United States. Only they called it America, with shortened vowels. He felt as if he was just as alien to them. He hoped the education was good and that the school was the best available. There were a lot of things he didn't know about, things he might want to change. He escaped from the headmaster's stifling sitting room as soon as he could make an excuse.

But Charlie was doing well. He was a credit to this old, rigid system. The formality, the distance between the pupils and the staff, which was so evident, had produced his son. He mustn't forget that. He must give himself time to adjust.

In the car on the way back, Angela said, “I know you thought they were stuffy, darling. But they run that school very well. And he's so happy there. You could see that.”

“Sure he is,” he said. “It's all so different from back home, that's all.”

He squeezed her hand and smiled. He didn't say anything, but he had already made up his mind that he didn't want to live in England. When they arrived at the Savoy there was a message for him from Piero, the only one who knew where to find him. He checked the time. His brother would be home by now. It wouldn't be safe to make contact through the office. While Angela bathed and changed to go to the Grill for dinner, he put the call through.

Lucia answered. She said, “Wait, I'll get him.” She was a good woman. Not even in front of her own children would she call him by his name.

Piero came on the line. “It's okay,” he said. “Lucia's taken the kids upstairs. How are you?”

“I'm fine,” Steven said. “Just fine. I've grown a beard. Even you wouldn't know me! How are Papa and Mama? How are things?”

“Okay, no problems. They came, had a meeting. We worked out the details. We paid your wife off.”

“Don't call her that,” Steven protested. “How much?”

“Too fuckin' much,” Piero said. “Half a million smackers and the house. You should've let me take care of her when I offered. Now listen. You got something you can send me? Clara gave you a wedding ring, didn't she?”

It was still on his finger, on the right hand.

“Yes,” he said. “It's engraved with the date. My initials and hers.”

“Send it,” Piero said. “Right away. You going to be at this number for a while?”

“A month, maybe more.” He paused. “What are you going to do, Piero? What's my father going to do?”

“Fake an accident,” Piero answered. “Send Fabrizzi the ring. That way he'll be convinced. Don't worry about it. Stay low and take good care, eh? How's the kid? He okay?”

For a moment Steven pictured the headmaster's sitting room, with its hard chairs, the walls covered with rows of boys posing for team photographs. Cricket. Football. The taste of sweet, cheap sherry.

“He's fine,” he said. “We just left him at school. Kiss Mama, will you? Say to Papa … well, you know what to say.”

“Send me that goddamned ring,” Piero said, and hung up.

Angela came into the room. She wore the same slim black dress he had seen that night at Les Ambassadeurs. Her hair was loose and shining, the way he liked it.

“I'm ready, darling. How was your brother? Nothing wrong, is there?”

He came and took her hands. “Everything's okay.… You're beautiful, Angelina. Let's go to dinner. I've got plans I want to talk over with you.”

They flew to Monte Carlo in November. The weather in London was cold and miserable, with days of drizzling rain. They stepped off the plane beneath blue skies and into pleasant, warm air. A hired car waited for them. He took Angela's arm and hurried her across the road and into it. Then he checked himself. There was no need to move quickly, to seek shelter. All that was in the past. But habits die hard. He still felt uncomfortable sitting in the middle of a public place without a wall at his back.

He had bought her a mink coat, which she carried over her arm. She didn't need it in the mild midwinter of the Côte d'Azur.

“It's so beautiful,” she said, gazing out the window at the bright sea below them, the land falling away from the curve of the Moyenne Corniche. Palm trees and handsome villas, charming little fishing villages clinging to the edge of the ports. “Darling, I'd no idea it was like this. I thought it would be dry and dusty. Like Sicily.”

“I thought you liked Sicily,” he said.

“I liked you, not the place,” she corrected. “This is green and pretty.”

“It's a soft country for soft people,” Steven told her. “Too much money. Too much of everything. Sicilians are hard because they've had to be.”

“You're not hard,” she said gently. “That's what I love about you.”

“Not with you,” he said.

“Not with Charlie either,” she said. “You'll spoil him to death if I let you.”

“I'm disappointed they wouldn't let him come,” he said. “For one weekend. It's no big deal, but they wouldn't let him.”

“Of course they wouldn't.” Angela shook her head. “He's only just gone back. How could they let him fly out here when everyone else was getting down to the term's work? Be reasonable, darling. I told you it was impossible, but you
would
ring up and ask.”

“I hate that sonofabitch headmaster,” Steven said. “Back home, they'd have let a boy go for a weekend with his parents. Don't let's talk about it, sweetheart. You're used to being pushed around by creeps like that. I'm not. I hope you like the place where we're staying. It's not fancy, but it's comfortable. We can drive across into Monte Carlo inside of twenty minutes.”

“Are we going to the casino?”

He looked out the car window. They were descending onto the coast road now. The signposts said Villefranche. They were very near.

“No,” he said. “Not the casino. I've been there. Someone would remember me. These guys have photographic memories. They never forget a face or a name.”

Angela said, “How can you trust this man Maxton?”

“He's no friend to the families,” Steven answered. “They busted him for everything he had in Nevada. That's why the casino down here employed him. They've always kept our people out. We'll talk. If he doesn't like my proposition, I'll think of something else.”

“You could have started up in London,” she reminded him. They had argued about that, but Steven was adamant. Too many links with the States.

She was thinking of Charlie at school in England while they lived in France. It had sounded so easy when she spoke to him about it in New York. Easy for him too. There were always holidays and half terms and the important things in a boy's life, like Sports Days and prize-giving.

She closed her mind to the misgivings. She had to think of Steven Falconi first—of his need for identity and purpose, and above all for safety.

Villefranche enchanted her. It was like a toy fishing port, with little boats lined up in the harbor, a few restaurants still open for local patronage. The season was long over, and except for themselves, the little hotel was empty. It was more of a guesthouse, with all services performed by the patron and his wife. Offering a tariff that was plainly a bribe, Steven had persuaded them to open specially.

They had dinner on the quay: good fish, rough wine from the nearby vineyards. She gathered the scraps and gave them to the starving cats that roamed outside. The other customers thought she must be American or English to waste good food on animals.

Steven apologized for the accommodations. “It's not for long. Just till I talk with Maxton. Then I've got a surprise for you, darling.”

“I wish you wouldn't be so silly,” Angela said. “I love it here. You forget, I'm not used to luxury and smart hotels. This is my idea of heaven, just the two of us and this dear little place.… What sort of surprise? I don't trust you, Steven.”

“You're right.” He laughed at her. “But I think you'll be pleased. I hope so. I love to see you looking happy.”

“I'm very happy.” She reached out and held his hand. “I love you so much. And it changes all the time. I'm so glad you got rid of that wedding ring. I hated you wearing it.”

“Why didn't you say so? I don't know why I wore it. What do you want for a wedding present, Angelina?”

“Darling,” she chided him. He was always buying her presents. The mink coat had been chosen without her and brought back to the Savoy as one of his many surprises. “I've got an engagement ring, my coat, all the clothes you've bought me. I don't want anything except the marriage certificate that makes it legal for Charlie. If it weren't for him and Daddy, I wouldn't care a damn. I'm married already.”

“It'll be great having him here,” Steven said. “And your father. He's quite a character.”

“He likes you,” she said. “It's funny. He was always so offhand with me and my brother when we were children. When I see him doting on Charlie and spoiling him, I can't believe it's the same person. It'll be strange, won't it, getting married in a registry office?”

“It's only for the piece of paper. But we'll make it special. You'll see.”

The next day she left him behind and drove across to Monte Carlo. The man Ralph Maxton was coming to see him at the hotel. Without realizing it, Angela had accepted the Mafia principle that women had no part in business.