The Scarlet Thread (38 page)

“Well, then,” Charlie said, nerving himself, “I'll ring him. I'll tell him we'll have a rotten bloody Christmas if he doesn't come home.”

Steven was packed. He was booked on the plane to Paris and then on to New York. He had called Piero and instead got Lucia, who panicked when he told her he was coming. “Just give Piero the message,” he told her. “I'll contact him when I get there. And Papa's not to know.” He'd hung up while she was still talking.

The villa was chill with impending desertion; the heat was turned low, and the windows were shuttered. Cat-footed Janine had driven him crazy, padding after him with sly little questions about when he was going to join Madame. She'd probably seen his ticket lying on his desk. She was packed too, ready to move out with her mother till she was told to return. Realizing he was late, he looked around quickly to see if he'd forgotten anything.

There was a sad sense of finality. Angela had been gone for nearly a week, and he'd got as far as dialing the English number several times before he put the phone down. There was nothing to say that hadn't already been said. He didn't want to lie to his son; he didn't want to think about him and Angela and the baby she was carrying.

He was at the door, his coat already buttoned against the cold outside, when the telephone rang. He hesitated. Hope surged for a moment. It must be Angela. He went back and picked up the receiver.

“Look, Dad, whatever it is you've got to do, couldn't it wait? Poor Mum's miserable. We'll all miss you—it'll be awful. What sort of business is it?”

“Family business,” Steven said. If only he'd gone a minute or two earlier; if only he hadn't stopped and answered. Charlie was turning a knife in his heart with every word. “My father has a problem. He needs me, Charlie.”

“I didn't know you had a father,” his son said. He sounded bewildered. “You've never mentioned him before. Dad, please, I know there's something wrong with you and Mum. She won't tell me, but I don't believe all this stuff about business. It's just an excuse! Jordan's parents are getting divorced. He's so upset he had to go home early.… Dad, there isn't something like that with you and Mum, is there? Dad? Are you there?”

After a pause Steven answered, “Yes, son, I'm here. Is your mother there? Let me speak to her.”

“She's taken Grandpa to town. Why haven't you rung us up?”

“Charlie, I tried, but I couldn't get through.…” He let the excuse die away. He put one hand over the mouthpiece and swore in anguish.

There was a clock on his desk. If he didn't leave immediately he might miss his flight. He could still make it if he drove like fury and the traffic lights were on his side. He could still catch the plane from Nice, change at Paris and be on his way to New York. His son was waiting on the line; he could tell him not to worry, not to think about Jordan and his parents and imagine that anything like that could happen to them.

He heard Charlie say, “Please come home for Christmas. Make it up with Mum.”

Steven looked at the clock once more. Then he said, “I guess it can wait. Don't tell your mother we've talked. I'm coming. Don't you worry about a thing. I'm sorry to hear about Jordan.”

“I didn't really think anything like that,” his son protested.

“Sure you didn't,” Steven said gently. “You keep this under your hat and we'll make it a surprise, okay?”

“Okay, Dad, super. See you!”

There was no doubt about the relief in Charlie's voice. Steven hung up. He opened the buttons on his overcoat one by one and sat down behind his desk. He picked up the clock and watched the hands move very slowly, till the last possible chance had gone. Then he reached for the phone and called the airlines to change his tickets and get a reservation for the next direct flight to London. As he was speaking, the door opened and Janine looked in.

“Monsieur … I thought you'd gone.”

He said, “Not for another two hours. You take your mother and be on your way. I'll lock the doors when I leave.” He turned his back, dismissing her. Reluctantly, she closed the door.

He sat on, waiting. The airline phoned back to confirm his change of travel plans. He had a seat on the seven o'clock plane.

“I didn't know you had a father. You've never mentioned him before.” He covered his face with his hands. A life built on lies, on deceiving his own flesh and blood. A life in which his obligation to one family conflicted with his love for another.

Pride and guilt had made him risk everything that really mattered to him. He had stood against Angela because it was a reaction bred into him, one that he'd absorbed with the air he breathed since childhood. When the call came, the men went, leaving their women and children to weep.

But he, finally, hadn't been proof against his son. He remembered Angela's fierce reproaches during the unhappy days of argument and counterargument. They had wounded him, made him very angry.

“You think it's right to risk your life for your father and brother? They've chosen to live with violence and death! You owe them more than you owe that boy, who thinks the world of you? Then you're not fit to be his father.…”

Bitter quarrels, tears, pleas on both sides. Pride and old traditions built an unbreachable wall between them.

He would have gone to New York anyway, if he hadn't heard the dread in Charlie's voice. “Jordan's parents are getting divorced. He's so upset …” The boy had sensed danger.

Steven thought suddenly,
That kind of gut reaction is a gift from God. It'll protect him always
. And then he realized he was thinking in the past, his own past, when he had to watch out for strangers, sit with his back to a wall in public places, consider every car pulling up beside him at traffic lights as a possible assassination threat. That bullet that had been fired at him in just such a situation was deflected only by toughened window glass. He could still hear the car screeching away. Not for his son. Not for Charles Steven Lawrence the life led by his father as a young man. He wouldn't need that sixth sense of danger. He said out loud, “Holy Jesus, what am I going to do if I haven't gone and Piero still won't listen?” and the phone rang again as if the oath had been a prayer and God had answered.

“Stefano?” It wasn't his brother. It was his cousin Tino Spoletto.

“Piero's out of town for the rest of the week,” he explained. “Lucia didn't get a chance to tell you. She came to me, she was so worried. Can we talk for a while?”

The voice sounded thin, and the line crackled. Steven said, “Yes, we can talk. She told you my reason for making the trip?” There was a burst of double echo; the words “making the trip” were bouncing back. Then the line cleared. “She told me. Your mother was worried. I was worried too, but now I don't need to worry anymore.”

“Why not? You mean Piero understands? Not two nights ago I spoke to him again and he said it was all crap. Those were his words to me. I knew I had to see him; there was no other way he'd open his eyes.”

“They're open now,” was the answer.

Steven said slowly, “What's happened? What's wrong, Tino?”

“Nothing, nothing. Piero went out to see to some business in Vegas. Your father and me went to a meeting last night. There were a lot of big men there. Men from the families. You were right—Aldo had a contract out on us. At the wedding, just like you said. But that was canceled at the meeting.” He paused. “I can't say too much, you understand, but the families have decided against him. Your father gave his consent. There's nothing to worry about now. Me and Nina and the kids all send our best to you. Have a nice Christmas over there. And watch the papers. Around January twelfth. It'll be one helluva wedding party.” The echo returned: “helluva wedding party.”

Steven hung up. His instinct had been right. Clara's father had set up his family, with the wedding as a front. Now the same sentence had been passed on Aldo. He stood up slowly. He couldn't help imagining the scene. The marriage, the nuptial mass in Saint Mary and the Angels, the cortege of cars on their way to the reception. How would it be done? An ambush, a hidden sniper …

There was no vengefulness in his heart. He felt sickened.

Everyone was watching television when the sitting room door opened and Steven walked in.

He heard his son's cry of welcome, but it was Angela who sprang to her feet and ran to him. Hugh Drummond struggled to get up, smiling with pleasure, and Ralph Maxton kept still in the background. He had no place in this family reunion.

That night in their room, Steven told her what had happened. “Charlie called me. You mustn't mind, Angela. He did it for the best.”

“Mind? Thank God he did. Oh, darling, when you opened that door and walked in, I couldn't believe it! And he was so happy tonight. So am I.” They held each other close.

“I'd already decided,” he went on. “I knew I couldn't do this to him and to you. Then I got the call from my cousin in New York. There's no danger to them now. I didn't need to go. But I'd made up my mind and told our boy before I knew that. I want you to understand that, sweetheart. You believe me?”

“You know I do,” she answered. “You weren't right about this wedding?”

“I was right,” he said slowly. “My father-in-law had it all figured out. The Falconi family were going to be wiped out.”

“Oh, Steven, don't. It's like a nightmare.”

“It'll be his nightmare now, not ours,” he said. “And that's all we need to know. Forget it, my darling. It came near to us, but it won't ever touch us again. Forgive me, will you?”

She kissed him. “You came home to us,” she said. “That's all I care about. We'll have a wonderful Christmas and pretend this never happened. The four of us.” And she placed his hand on her gently swollen abdomen.

She slept deeply and peacefully in his arms that night.

They had a truly merry Christmas. The tree sparkled in the hallway; snow didn't fall, but the weather was cold and bright with sunshine—perfect for walking. Steven and Angela kept very close, drawing Charlie with them, realizing how near they'd come to being separated forever.

Maxton accepted his role of companion to the old doctor. He liked Drummond, and in spite of Charlie's jealous judgment, he didn't find him a bore. He was solid and accessible, so unlike Maxton's own father, a remote figure who would make an appearance at the big family Christmas dinner in the great hall in Derbyshire but who never really participated. Maxton imagined it sometimes, indulging in a little self-inflicted pain, then turning it to mockery. He had hated the formal gatherings at Christmas—the relatives summoned out of the woodwork, the ritual present-opening at three-thirty precisely, after they had all been forced to listen to the queen's speech.

He had hated the forced gaiety, which never included him because he was inevitably in disgrace about something: giving a vulgar comic book to an elderly aunt, forgetting to give someone else anything at all, making an ill-timed request for money to cover an overdraft. He never got it right, from the time when he was a little boy and he'd helped himself to too much champagne and thrown up in the middle of Christmas lunch. So he settled now for old Dr. Drummond and his stories and was grateful. Angela was happy again, happy that Steven was back, and their rift, whatever it was, had healed. She enthusiastically spread her happiness around. He remembered how his parents had despised the middle classes. The backbone of England, no doubt, but terribly dull and easily ridiculed. His family had a lot to learn from people like the Drummonds. He was glad to be with them, and yet he felt lonelier than he had for many years.

He had lost his private battle during that Christmas; he had fallen in love for the first time in his life. Analyzing it, he admitted that Angela had broken through the mistrust of women that had insulated him. Sexual attraction, a charming prettiness, these were easy to resist. But not her kindness. She was thoughtful and gentle in her dealings with other people. In all innocence she had pierced his tough defensive shell by treating him like someone who mattered, someone whom she cared about.

It had begun when he lay ill and alone, and she had taken him home to nurse. He had never known affection, and seeing it lavished only on others had fostered a deep sense of unworthiness.

Watching her with her family, and especially with Steven, Maxton experienced a degree of helpless longing that could only change to jealousy. And to fantasies in which her family disappeared and only he remained to claim her.

And then on Christmas morning, amid the debris of opened presents, Steven appeared with a bottle of champagne and, with his arm around Angela, announced that she was going to have a baby. The cork popped, glasses were filled, and they drank to the happy news.

“How splendid,” the doctor kept saying. “What good news. Nice for you, Charlie, to have a brother or sister.” He went around beaming, the champagne tipping over the edge of his glass.

Maxton watched the boy go up and embrace his mother and Steven. He didn't like Charlie. He saw more of his father in him than Angela. One day that English public school veneer would rub off. Finally he went up and congratulated them.

Angela said sweetly, “Thank you, Ralph dear. I'm so glad you're with us today. It's a real family celebration, isn't it, darling?”

And Steven looked down at her fondly and said yes, it was.

They had plans for New Year's Eve, and they were insisting that Maxton stay on. He couldn't come up with an excuse immediately but made a telephone call from the village to Madeleine, asking her to send a phony message.

The last thing he wanted was to stay and celebrate the new year with the inhabitants of those neat little houses round the village green. Nice, proper people, neighbors of the doctor and his late wife, people who'd known Angela all her life. He couldn't bear to be second best a moment longer.