Appalled, I wait for Ed to move away. But for a minute he just stands there as if weighing up his options.
I want to say something. But I’m too scared of the consequences. Thankfully, Gus breaks the uneasy silence that has fallen, despite the music around us. ‘I think we ought to let the newly-weds go. Don’t you?’
Ed refuses to speak to me all the way home. It’s a one-sided conversation.
‘I don’t know why you’re being like this,’ I say, running to keep up with him. ‘I only wondered where you were. I was worried. And I didn’t know anyone …’
The more I say, the more stupid I sound.
‘You’re jealous of her.’
At least he’s speaking to me now.
‘No. No, I’m not.’
‘Yes, you are.’ There’s a click as Ed opens our door.
‘All right. I am.’
I can’t stop myself. ‘You followed her around like a puppy from the minute we went into that smart flat of hers. You couldn’t take your eyes off her. And then you disappeared for ages …’
‘TO GET SOME BLOODY AIR!’
I stand back, shocked. Despite his ups and downs, Ed has never shouted at me before.
‘You heard her.’ He’s speaking more quietly now, but the anger is still there. ‘She’s got a boyfriend. And we’re married. Isn’t that good enough for you?’
‘But is it good enough for you?’ I whisper back.
There’s a tight pause between us. Neither of us dares to speak.
I finally allow myself to think of our honeymoon and what happened. Or rather what didn’t happen. My mind goes back further to the night after Ed’s unexpected proposal on that second date in a little restaurant in Soho. To the fumbling afterwards on the bed in my tiny shared flat. To my mumbled request that, if he didn’t mind, I’d rather ‘wait’ until we got married.
His eyes had widened in disbelief. ‘You haven’t done this before?’
I’d expected him to declare that this was ridiculous. That hardly anyone was still a virgin at twenty-five. I prepared myself to return his ring, admit it had all been a dream.
But instead, he had held me to him, stroking my hair. ‘I think that’s rather sweet,’ he’d murmured. ‘Just think what an amazing honeymoon we’ll have.’
Amazing? More like a complete disaster.
Just as I’d feared, my body refused.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked. But I couldn’t – wouldn’t – tell him. Even though I knew he thought it was his fault.
No wonder he turned his back to me.
The atmosphere became so bad between us that I made myself go through with it on the final night.
‘It will get easier,’ he said quietly afterwards.
This is the time to tell him, I think now. I don’t want to lose this man. Ironically, I love it when he cuddles me. I like talking to him too. Being with him. But I know that can’t be enough for him, not for much longer. No wonder Ed is tempted by Davina. I have only myself to blame.
‘Ed, there’s something that I must …’
I stop at a strange scratching noise. A note is being pushed under the door. Ed bends down and hands it to me silently.
This is Francesca from number 7. I have to work on Sunday. I am sorry to request. Please could you look after my little one. She will be no trouble.
Ed shrugs. ‘Up to you. After all. I’ll be painting.’ He turns to go to the bathroom, then stops. ‘Sorry, what were you about to say just now?’
‘Nothing.’
I’m filled with relief. Thanks to the timely distraction, the moment has passed. I’m glad. If I’d made my confession, I’d have lost Ed for ever.
And that can’t happen.
8
Carla
Mamma was happy, observed Carla, with a lightness in her own heart. They sang together all the way to the bus stop. Last night Mamma and the man with the shiny car had danced so hard that the floor had shaken. But Carla had been a good girl and did not get out of bed to ask them to stop, even though it had been difficult to sleep. She’d cuddled up to Charlie the caterpillar instead.
Right now, she was jumping. It was essential, Carla told herself, to take even more care than usual to leap over the unlucky cracks in the pavement. She had to make sure that nothing bad happened after all the new good stuff.
‘We’re sorry that you have been bullied,’ one of the teachers had said – the only nice one – when all the others had gone out to play. ‘The boy who hit you has hurt others too. It will not happen again.’
Kevin wasn’t there. So she was safe to bring Charlie into school! A warm feeling of thanks wrapped Carla up like a woolly cloud blanket. Grazie! Grazie! She would be like all the others.
Well, not quite. Carla eyed her reflection in the bus driver’s mirror as she and Mamma got on. She would always be different because of her olive skin, her black hair, and her eyebrows, which were thicker than anyone else’s. Hairy Carla Cavoletti!
‘Carla,’ said Mamma sternly, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Do not jump up and down like that. It will not make the bus start any faster.’
But she was looking for Lily. Not long after her poorly eye, Mamma’s boss had told her she had to work on a Sunday. ‘What am I to do?’ Mamma had said, her eyes round with anguish. ‘I have no one to leave you with, cara mia.’
Then her gaze had fallen on the photograph of the hunched woman in a shawl with a face that looked like lots of little crinkly waves made out of stone. ‘If only your nonna were here to help.’
Carla had been ready with her idea. ‘The lady who took me to hospital, remember, from number 3. She said she would help any time.’
As she spoke, she remembered Charlie. Supposing Lily with the golden hair told Mamma that Charlie the caterpillar was not a present after all?
Too late. Mamma had already written a note and slid it under Lily’s door. All Saturday night, Carla tossed and turned and worried in her little narrow bed with the simple cross above, made of wood from the Holy Land. Poor Charlie was scared too. I do not want to leave you, he said.
In the morning, Carla woke to find Mamma’s eyes sparkling over her. ‘The nice lady and her husband are going to take you for the day. You must be good. Yes!’
Charlie’s heart was beating as they walked down the corridor. Hers too.
Please don’t let them be found out.
‘I will be back as soon as I can,’ Mamma was saying to Lily. ‘You are so kind. I must thank you too for the present you bought her.’
There was a silence. So loud that everyone had to hear it. Slowly Carla looked up and met Lily’s eyes. She was wearing trousers that made her hips look very wide, and she did not have lipstick on. Instinctively, Carla knew this was not the kind of woman who would lie.
‘Present?’ Lily said slowly.
‘The caterpillar pencil case.’ Carla’s voice trembled as she fixed her eyes on Lily’s while crossing her fingers behind her back. ‘You bought it for me after the hospital to make me feel better. Remember?’
Another long silence. Carla’s fingers fell over themselves in her attempt to squeeze them even tighter. Then Lily nodded. ‘Of course. Now, why don’t you come in. I thought we might make a cake together. Do you like baking?’
Mamma’s voice sang out in relief. Carla’s too. ‘She loves cooking!’ ‘I do. I do!’
No school now, Carla told herself as she skipped inside. Instead it was a wonderful day! She and Lily got flour all over the floor when they weighed the cake ingredients. But her new friend did not get cross like Mamma. Nor did she have to have ‘a little rest’ with her husband, a tall man called Ed who sat in the corner of the room doing something on a pad of paper. At first she was scared of him because he looked like a film star in one of the magazines that Larry brought Mamma. His hair reminded her a bit of Robert Redford, one of Mamma’s heroes.
She was also a little alarmed because Ed asked Lily why she’d moved his paints ‘again’ in a fed-up voice, just like Larry’s when he came over and found that she was still up.
But then Ed asked if he could draw her, and his face seemed to change. He looked much happier.
‘You have such wonderful hair,’ he said as his eyes darted from the paper to her head and then back again.