‘Don’t tell Daddy, will you? Or Sam and Francesca? They already think I’m a baby.’
‘Come here.’ I hugged him to me, closing my gritty eyes and resting my face on his head. ‘You’ll grow out of it. It’s just taking a bit longer for you. We all do things at different times – some children walk and talk long after everyone else, some stop wetting the bed late – we all get there in the end. But I wouldn’t swap you for anyone in the world.’
‘Mum?’
‘Yes?’ I said, balling up the sheets.
‘Why were you swearing at Daddy last night?’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, my mind recoiling from the idea that Sandro had heard any of that conversation.
‘I wet the bed before you’d gone to sleep but then I heard you arguing, so I didn’t come in.’
‘Have you been sleeping in a wet bed all night?’
Sandro shrugged. ‘I put a towel over it.’
‘Were you crying?’
‘Not really.’ His stoicism – or low expectations of life – would have finished me off if I’d had any more despair left to squeeze out.
He sat on the bed, his feet dangling over the edge. ‘Was it my fault you were shouting at Daddy? Because he tried to help me swim yesterday morning?’
I felt my heart leap. Sandro was already doing what I did. Re-writing history, because facing up to the truth was too brutal.
I knelt down beside him. ‘What Daddy did was horrible. He wasn’t really trying to help you, he was trying to force you to do something you weren’t ready to do. But that wasn’t why I was shouting.’
I hadn’t rehearsed this. I hadn’t even spelt it out to Massimo that I was leaving him yet, let alone worked out how to have the ‘Mummy’s not going to live with Daddy’ conversation. My thoughts were bumping about like moths in the light, blundering into so many things that would have to happen before I could consider having that talk. Number one priority would be taking Sandro’s passport out of the flight bag. Number two would be coming up with a plan for what I could do with less than twenty pounds to my name. But I – we – couldn’t stay.
Sandro hugged me. ‘I’ll be good today.’ He paused. I felt him take a deep breath, as though he was trying to find courage within him. ‘Do you think Daddy would be happy if I try to swim with Maggie?’
His shoulders grew tense under my arms.
I bent over, so he couldn’t see my eyes fill. ‘You haven’t done anything wrong; it isn’t your responsibility to make us happy. Only Mummy and Daddy can make each other happy.’ And as I said it, I realised that neither of us appeared to have achieved that in a very long time.
My tears splashed onto the terracotta tiles.
Sandro fetched a towel and wiped the floor. ‘Don’t cry, Mummy.’
I tried to smile but I couldn’t keep the emotions trapped inside any more. Telling Massimo what I thought was like opening the door to an aviary. One by one, feelings that had been perched quietly pecking away, with no expectation of being released were pouring out of the door, flapping towards freedom without being sure that they’d survive in the outside world but willing to take the risk. Anything to stop living in a cage of misery.
Sandro tapped me. ‘Shhh. Stop crying. It will make Daddy cross.’
Yes it would. But this time I’d just have to face his anger.
I got out some clean clothes for Sandro and left him to get ready. As I walked out of his room, I looked over to the pool area. No one else was about yet. The idea of marching to the sun loungers in a couple of hours’ time and clapping my hands for my little announcement seemed nowhere near as feasible as it had in the early hours of the morning.
Despite Massimo’s pleading, I’d blanked his apologies, his excuses. Of course he hadn’t slept with her; it was a meeting of minds more than anything; just overfamiliarity really; she’d listened when he’d felt despairing and alone, when I’d been unreachable, distant, wrapped up in the baby; then it had become a habit, then she’d got ill herself and needed him more than ever.
Bullshit.
I’d turned away from his hands reaching out for mine, reminding myself that, sooner or later, his promises would tarnish like silver candlesticks in a charity shop. He’d only cried out of fear that I’d call his bluff and show the whole family what he was really like.
I imagined calling everyone’s attention. Maggie and Beryl looking up from commenting on Kate Middleton’s hairstyle in Heat magazine. Anna scowling at the interruption to experimenting with anagrams for her cryptic crossword. Nico sitting up, slipping a bookmark into his tome about ‘Ideal plants for acidic soils’. Everyone waiting for me to run the day’s menu past them, taking into account that Francesca didn’t like tomatoes, Sam didn’t want any Parmesan because it smelt like sick, Nico wasn’t keen on lamb unless it was very lean. Was I really going to stand there and announce that ‘I know this will come as a bit of a surprise to you all, but my husband, your brother, your son, has been living a lie for years. And so have the rest of us because of it…’ Was I really going to watch their faces falling, like a reverse Mexican wave, dominoing round before descending into a collective pit of shock? What about Sandro?
My shoulders sagged. I hesitated before going into our bedroom. I wondered if I could get through the holiday, wait until we got home, when I could plan and prepare, without an audience.
I opened the door but remained on the threshold. Massimo was pulling on his trousers, not a spare ounce of gut to sully his perfect physique. I tucked in my stomach out of habit, preparing myself for one of his observations, presented as general conversation but laced with hidden instructions about how I was to behave and lurking threats on what would happen if I didn’t. Instead he held out his hand to me, his face drawn and anguished. I put my hands in my pockets.
‘I love you, Lara. I know I can’t make you stay, but please don’t do anything yet.’
I shook my head. ‘You can’t love me if you behave like that. You weren’t thinking about anyone except yourself.’
I stepped into the room but kept my heel in the door to stop it closing completely. Maggie and Nico were in the room over the way if he turned nasty.
‘What would I have to do for you to give me a chance to make it up to you? And Sandro?’
My question, ‘What do you suggest?’ surprised me, a distant reminder of the woman I used to be at work, negotiating, gathering information, open to other people’s views rather than entrenched around my own. I’d failed to guard the last fragments of my personality before they disappeared under the onslaught of Massimo telling me who I was. I’d have to relearn independent thought.
His face cleared. ‘You make a list of all the things you want to change and give me till Christmas to do it.’