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At the reception, she fixed a bright smile on her face and kept it there. Everybody seemed excited and happy and she stood among them, isolated from them by the shell of cold misery which surrounded her. People kept coming up to her, shaking her hand or kissing her cheek, but they weren’t real, not to her. Nothing was except the dark-clad man beside her. He said very little and looked as expressionless as a Buddha, yet she felt he was filled with satisfaction. Let him be satisfied! And she vowed grimly that it would be a short-lived satisfaction. She kept the sticky smile on her face while she decided that the new Mrs Jennie Manfred was going to be the most awkward and uncomfortable wife in the whole wide world. She saw Philip, clinging to his grandmother’s hand and obviously enjoying himself, and she saw all the other empty, smiling faces. She hated them, every one of them, and wanted to scream at them to go away and stop being so damned happy.

By three o’clock in the afternoon her smile had become so rigid that she feared her face would crack, and she was vaguely grateful when Jerome took her arm firmly and announced that they were leaving. Kate had eaten nothing and washed it down with several glasses of champagne so that she was feeling dizzy and lightheaded. She wished she had the courage to shake off that proprietorial hand and stalk out by herself, but the room was going round and the floor beneath her feet didn’t feel very steady. Somebody wanted her flowers and she flung them from her with a feeling of relief, not even looking to see who had caught them.

Back in the apartment, she tore her way out of the white velvet and kicked the lovely dress half under the bed when it lay around her ankles. Her hair would do, she decided; she had taken great pains with it that morning and it still looked smooth. She patted a few stray curls away from the nape of her neck and went into the bathroom to wash away Jerome’s mother’s work on her face before she touched it up again with a fresh layer of foundation and dusted powder over it. Her hand shook slightly as she tried to apply a little lipstick, but she steadied her elbow on the top of the dressing table and achieved quite a credible result before she squirmed her way into the cream wool dress which Mrs Manfred had decided would do after all for a going- away outfit, and she tugged irritably at the zip. It jammed and she found herself weeping with rage, frustration and something like fear. Jerome chose this moment to enter the bedroom, and she glared at his reflection as he stood behind her.

‘I’m dressing,’ she said icily.

‘And I am now your husband!’ he said unconcernedly, and his hand went out, unjammed the zip and pulled it up. Kate felt his fingers against her back and again at the nape of her neck as he fastened the minute hook and eye at the top of the zip, and she shivered involuntarily. Then she pulled herself together and tried for a little calm and common sense.

‘Is Philip ready?’

‘Mmm.’ He was mocking her and she refused to look up into his face. ‘My mother resisted the temptation to dress him in white velvet to match the bride, so he can travel as he is. He’s waiting for us in the car.’

Kate fastened on the subject of Philip and let it occupy her mind to the exclusion of all else. She was living by the hour, she reflected dully. One hour at a time and concentrating on the ‘now’ so that she could push the future away. ‘I hope he hasn’t been allowed to overeat,’ she heard her own voice and it sounded strange, a bit shrill. ‘I don’t want him being sick in your car.’

‘We aren’t going in the Ferrari.’ Jerome sounded so matter-of-fact that she almost stopped shaking. ‘Mother has lent us her chauffeur and her car. If Philip is sick in it, it will be her own fault for feeding him unsuitable things. Hurry now, please.’

Kate grabbed her handbag and went past him, thinking hard about Philip, Mrs Manfred’s antique Rolls and her equally antique chauffeur. When the car turned off the main road and down into the small town of Staines, she was jerked out of her apathy.

‘I thought... the airport... Heathrow....’

‘Not today.’ Jerome slanted a glance down at her and then at the drowsy child on the seat beside her. ‘Neither of you is fit to travel any farther today. Although Philip has spared us by not being sick, he’s eaten too much, whereas you’ve eaten nothing. Tonight we shall stay in a nearby hotel. We can fly to Rome tomorrow morning when you’ve both had a rest. We shall stay there one night too and then we’ll drive down to Calabria. It will be better for Philip.’

Kate had hardly expected this amount of consideration and her eyes widened. She would have liked to have waved it all away airily and insisted that they continue the journey as planned, but she felt too exhausted and hungry. That was a surprise to her, that she should feel hungry, but as she told herself grimly, the prisoner was always given a hearty meal before the execution. ‘I’m hungry,’ she announced, although it came out as a plaintive wail.

‘Dinner has been ordered.’

That night she slept in a double bedroom with Philip while Jerome occupied the single room next door. There was a communicating door, but she locked it firmly. She lay in the darkness, listening to Philip’s easy breathing, and felt half glad, half sorry. Was it a fate worse than death, or couldn’t it be called that when it happened to a married woman? The silly thought brought a near-hysterical giggle to her throat. It wasn’t happening tonight, though, and that pleased one half of her. The other half would have been glad to get it over. It was like being under sentence of death with the date of the execution fixed. She had been nearly prepared for it, she had had the hearty meal and she was in just the right frame of mind—numb! Now there had been a stay of execution and she had another twenty-four hours to get through and then try to recapture the numbness. Meanwhile she was here; alone, full of good food and tired to death.

She slept deeply and dreamlessly, so that when she woke, she gazed around at the unfamiliar room and for a moment wondered where she was. Then memory came rushing back and she drew her left hand from beneath the covers and looked at the heavy gold ring on her finger. Her eyes slid across to the other bed where Philip had been sleeping and she half rose in the bed as she realised that Philip was no longer there. She stopped being frightened only when the bedroom door opened and the little boy and Jerome came in quietly, or as quietly as Philip ever came into a room. He flung himself at her, scrambling to sit comfortably on her stomach.

‘Jumbo jet!’ he announced, and then, ‘Fly!’ His short arms stretched out on either side of his stout little body and he made the appropriate noises.

‘I locked that door!’ Kate glared at her husband.

‘A pass key.’ He looked unperturbed. ‘Philip was awake; I could hear him, so I came and collected him. He’s had a shower and he’s dressed. If you hurry, we’ll have time for breakfast.’

‘Philip doesn’t like showers,’ she objected.

‘He does now.’ There was the ghost of a smile about Jerome’s mouth. ‘You’ve been too soft with him, Kate. He needs a firmer hand.’

‘And now I suppose you’re going to take over?’ She was sarcastic.

‘Mmm, when necessary—but stop wasting time. Get dressed and come to breakfast. I’ll take Philip down now.’

‘Thank you,’ she said grudgingly, and deliberately waited until he had left the room before she threw back the covers and started to hunt through her cases for something to wear. The cream and coffee outfit belonged to yesterday, which hadn’t been a ‘good’ day. Perhaps today would be better.

She entered the dining room a quarter of an hour later, neat and precise in
&
thin charcoal grey suit worn with a pale green silk blouse. There was a short leather jacket lying on top of her case in the bedroom, in case she should be cold, and the cream and coffee gear had been bundled to the bottom of her luggage. Kate felt quite cheerful this morning and wanted no reminders of what she now thought of as the worst day of her life.

Philip, who had finished his cereal and was now busy dipping toast soldiers into his boiled egg, spared her a glance.

‘Fly with Uncle,’ he was emphatic. ‘Goodbye!’

Kate accepted the coffee which the waiter was proffering and glared at her husband for the second time that morning.

‘You’ve been brainwashing him,’ she scolded as she helped herself to cream and sugar and buttered a piece of toast lavishly.

The flight to Rome was boring; there was no delightful view of patchwork fields to look down upon, neither did Kate catch a glimpse of the sea. She saw only
the
topsides of clouds which looked so much like the undersides of clouds that she found difficulty in convincing herself that she was not upside down. Philip behaved himself beautifully, sitting on either her knee or Jerome’s and beaming widely at the stewardesses and playing with a plastic model of an aeroplane while making the appropriate noises.

In the Rome hotel there was another stay of execution which thoroughly upset Kate. She had been feeling much better—and why shouldn’t she? she asked herself. Nobody could live in a welter of gloom for ever, and two of her biggest gloom-makers had been eliminated. She no longer had to fear that the Manfred? would find her and Philip, they had already done so, and she need not fear that they would whip Philip away and she would never see him again, because that wasn’t going to happen either. In fact, she had only one great trial to face; her mind shuddered away from it, and she wished she had the courage to invade Jerome’s bedroom and say, ‘Do it now and get it over!’ But she did no such thing. She curled up on her comfortable mattress, between sheets which felt like silk, twitched a lace-trimmed pillow beneath her cheek and slept like a baby.

And now, she thought as she stepped stiffly from the car, here is Calabria, and she sought vainly for the blissful numbness which she had felt in the hotel near Staines. The house facing her was old—‘primitive’, Jerome had said, but it was lovely, a golden stone with all the corners worn smooth by weather and time and with a faded red pantiled roof with tremendous eaves which overhung the walls. The windows were tall and narrow and the upper ones had little wrought iron balconies which bulged outwards like cabriole legs, and the side walls of the house had been extended in a series of arches to surround a large square tiled courtyard. And over everything was a sharp, sweet perfume that was in the air itself. Kate sniffed appreciatively and hung on grimly to Philip, who had spotted a fountain in the middle of the courtyard and wanted to throw himself into it.

Jerome noticed the sniff. ‘Bergamot,’ he explained. ‘The sweet lime. It’s the main crop in this area, used in perfume and tea among other things, and during the harvest, when the skins are being squeezed to extract the oil, you can smell nothing else. Come inside and meet Constantina, she’ll look after you. Her English is limited, but you’ll manage.’

Constantina took one look at Philip and ignored everything else. She clapped her hands to her kerchief-covered head in delight and yelled an incomprehensible sentence which ended with the word
bambino,
and Philip, who even at this early age could recognise a child- worshipper when he saw one, smiled fatly, nodded his dark curls and offered a kiss. Kate watched them go, the little plump old lady, her long black skirts swinging under her white apron, and the little boy skipping at her side. Constantina was chattering as if there was no tomorrow and Philip was basking in adulation.

Kate walked in through the door very slowly and made polite conversation. ‘It’s warmer here,’ she ventured. ‘Warmer than in England, I mean.’

Jerome matched her inanity. ‘The average January temperature is fifty degrees Fahrenheit. It’s warmer than that now and this side of Calabria is dryer than the side facing Sicily.’

‘And the chief crop is bergamot,’ Kate finished the geography lesson. ‘Is there a bathroom?’ She heard herself make the stiff, polite query and wished frantically that she could be normal and waspish as she followed him up the stairs and watched him put their cases in one room. The bed looked very large and quite modem, and she caught herself on the edge of hysterical laughter. What did it matter what the bed looked like?

‘Yes, there is a bathroom.’ Jerome was matter-of-fact. ‘But that’s where the primitive part comes in. There’s no hot water system. The villa is not generally used except during the summer when I find a cold shower sufficient, but Constantina will toil around with jugs of hot water if you like.’

‘Oh no!’ she babbled. ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking. It’s not too cold for a cold shower, in fact it will help me to wake up a bit. It’s just that I feel a bit grubby and sticky after the journey.’ At this point her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, she felt tears in her eyes and a painful lump in her throat. ‘I can’t,’ she whispered, while her eyes slid to the bed.

‘Welshing on our agreement, Kate?’ He sounded exasperated. ‘It’s no more than I expected. Your face has worn a white martyred look since Saturday. I’ve given you enough time, surely, and so far I’ve not forced you into anything.’

‘Yes, you have!’ She flung the words at him. ‘You would have taken Philip away from me.’

‘Then we must hope you find Philip worth the—er— sacrifice.’ He was unsympathetic as he abstracted clean clothes from a case and left her alone in their bedroom.

Within a short while Constantina was tapping at the door. With a very few English words, a few more Italian and a lot of mime, she made Kate understand that Philip had eaten, drunk, been bathed and was now in his bed and sleeping like an angel; that there was a meal ready for the Signor and Signora and that it was all to be eaten, and furthermore, that she, Constantina, was happy! Jerome came in at the end of the monologue and it was all repeated to him, but without the English words or the mime, just a swift torrent of Italian. He smiled at the little woman as she bustled out.

‘Did you get all that?’ he enquired lazily.

‘Most of it.’ Kate sat down wearily on the bed. ‘Philip’s been bathed, fed and put to bed where he’s now sleeping, we’re to eat all our dinner and Constantina is happy.’