But how could he make sense of a world where one person dictated and the other acquiesced? Where was the ‘We listen to what each other has to say’ in that? The ‘We look after each other’ that Massimo was so keen on ramming home – when it suited him? How would he ever understand why I hadn’t stepped in – right in the middle of one of Massimo’s diatribes about Sandro poncing about with his paints and pencils – and put my face right up to his father’s, stuck my hand in his chest and said, ‘Enough. I’m leaving you and taking him with me.’
Maybe he’d understand when he was older. That if I left, I’d have to leave without him. Massimo had made it clear he’d fight me, follow me. We’d never be rid of him. I’d seen enough of the Farinellis to know Anna and Massimo would never accept defeat; that their idea of winning was not just getting what they wanted but making sure their opponents lay gasping their last. And if, by some miracle, I managed to share custody, half the time Sandro would be alone with Massimo without me to anticipate, to calm, to sacrifice myself if necessary. Half the time left on his own to second-guess whether the nine out of ten in spellings that was acceptable last week would be a cause for an eruption this week. To sit in front of a fish dinner he hated and wonder whether it was worse to refuse to eat it or throw up trying. To lie in bed in a pool of urine rather than wake his father.
And that was without considering what would happen to my poor befuddled dad, currently safe in his private nursing home specialising in Alzheimer patients. Paid for by my generous husband who ‘only wanted the best for us all’.
So instead of standing there cuddling that sweet little boy, his face clouded with bemusement at why his mother couldn’t make things better by talking to Daddy, I got his tracksuit out of the drawer and watched him put it on with agonising slowness.
I patted him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll go and get your snack ready. Don’t be long because Daddy’s waiting.’
As I walked downstairs, I peered through the bannister into the playroom where I could see Massimo moving about. A hundred little pieces of paper with snippets of circles on them were scattered across the room like the aftermath of a demented wedding. Then the unmistakable snap of wood, the sound of Sandro’s treasured pencils falling to the floor in a rainbow of insanity.
A punishment for Sandro for being quiet and arty, not sporty, not man enough for Massimo.
And a punishment for me.
13
MAGGIE
Nico bought me the most wonderful worktable with built-in lights and tiny drawers. He commissioned – I didn’t think I’d ever tire of that word – a fabulous cupboard with a hanging rail high enough for the most elaborate long dress. We got rid of most of the boxes, stacking the ones Francesca thought she might want when she was older in a corner. I’d hidden the gold jewellery box under a pile of fabric at the back of one of my cupboards. Every other day I’d pull it out, wondering if I’d somehow got the wrong end of the stick. Between Francesca and Anna, they’d planted a picture in my head of this slender saint of a woman, her house, her belongings, her whole life neatly shuffled into tidy categories, with no room for a jam doughnut, let alone furtive conversations and sneaky sex sessions. Nowhere in my imaginings did a wild hussy feature, jaunting off to Bath for an illicit rendezvous, lies laid out, alibis aligned. Could anyone who was uptight enough to buy sock dividers for her drawers really be getting her baps out for someone other than her own husband? I didn’t associate a woman who had owned a special brush for dusting behind the radiators with rash and reckless sex.
I traced my fingers over the engraving in the bottom of the box, squinting at the postcards and notes, studying that unfamiliar writing and comparing it with Nico’s. I dithered. Whichever way I looked at it – and I was pretty sure there was only one way – Caitlin’s halo was hovering around her ankles, along with her pants.
It was madness to hang onto something that could only cause my husband pain. Surely the kindest thing would be to throw it out, pack it off to a landfill site, to keep its secrets forever among the rotting nappies, holey trainers and VHS tapes? Perhaps someone would get lucky in a hundred years’ time and come up trumps with a metal detector, but for now, knowing the truth could only bring up a whole load of questions to hurt Nico, with no possibility of answers. As well as adding yet another thing onto the bonfire of conflicting feelings Francesca was already trying to tame.
But still I kept it, unable or unwilling to part with it without being able to pinpoint why. As some kind of weird protection against Anna when she made me feel Nico would never be as happy with me as he was with Caitlin? To prove that I hadn’t dreamt it up, that it wasn’t the warped and bitter mind of ‘she who came next’, looking for treachery and betrayal where there wasn’t any?
I considered showing Nico. Maybe there was a simple explanation, though I couldn’t think what. But I didn’t want to humiliate him or hurt him by proxy. I couldn’t quite get my head round comforting him through the discovery that Caitlin had had an affair. It was easier to accept his grief that she’d died than his devastation that she’d betrayed him.
The irony of it falling to Nico’s second wife to protect him from the betrayal of the first wasn’t lost on me. It wasn’t so much keeping it from Nico that worried me. The real challenge was resisting the temptation to see the look on Anna’s face if I blurted out the fabulous first wife had been bonking her dodgy lover in Bath.
As May rolled into June, I thought about it less and less. Since I’d made Francesca a couple of dresses, she’d been a walking advert for my business. The first time she’d worn one to a party, she looked so stunning I wanted to send Sam with her to fight off the boys. Choosing ‘my’ dress to wear from the hundreds of outfits discarded on her bedroom floor was such a mark of acceptance that I had to work hard at not ruining the moment with my over the top enthusiasm. Word was spreading that ‘Francesca’s step-mum makes really cool clothes’. A few parents had contacted me about prom dresses for the end of July and I was becoming really busy. I’d even had a commission to make an evening dress with a peacock feather bodice ‘for a milestone birthday’. Every time I worked on it, I felt like a seamstress to a Hollywood star.
One of the things I loved about my little attic workshop were the two dormer windows where I could see out over the neighbourhood. When I’d been squinting over hooks and eyes or – truly evil – sewing on sequins as I was today, I’d readjust my vision by looking out into the distance, letting my eyes focus on the tops of trees. I could see right into Lara and Massimo’s garden, which looked like an upmarket park with a wooden treehouse, tyre swings and a trampoline. Sam pretended to be too old for all that, but when he was next door, I’d spy him racing out to the trampoline to do somersaults and back flips I was better off not seeing.