I raised my eyebrows at Nico, hoping he’d cop on to my wifespeak that we were in the middle of a ‘tricky situation’. I’d only got as far as ‘We’re just talking to Robert, Lara’s dad,’ when Massimo waved a hand towards Nico and said, ‘There, Robert. This is the man you saw with Caitlin. My brother, Nico.’
I waited, watching Robert, seeing if anything slotted into place. It was like playing Jenga in reverse, working out which bits you could slot back into the tower to stop the structure collapsing in a heap. His eyes narrowed as though a tremendous effort was required to keep hold of solid substances in the mists of his mind.
Robert walked towards Nico and stood opposite him, within millimetres of his face.
Nico, bless him, stepped back slightly but took hold of Robert’s arm. ‘I’m Nico, do you remember me? We met at Lara and Massimo’s wedding.’
The mention of Massimo was like watching someone give a cutlery drawer wedged shut by a wooden spoon a good thump. After so much tugging and banging, everything suddenly glided open with ease. Robert swung round and poked his bony finger in Massimo’s chest.
Lara shot out a hand. ‘Dad, don’t poke.’
But Robert was surprisingly strong for someone who looked as though he could well have pipe cleaners in the place of bones. He wrestled his arm free, leaning right into Massimo, his milky blue eyes darting about, his tongue making little movements around his lips as though he was anticipating the arrival of a precious moment of clarity.
In a triumphant tone he shouted, ‘You. I did see you. I saw you in the bedroom. With that woman… Cat— Cat—’ He waved at the photograph. ‘The bedroom where there’s purple round the window. Purple, purple…’ His hands were moving, as though he was trying to hook a word out of the ether. Then he forgot about it and said, ‘You were having sex. Sex! Sex!’
Before I could order my thoughts, Massimo’s voice started to rise, ‘Shut up! You’ve just come here to make trouble. Of course I wasn’t having sex with my brother’s wife, you demented old fool.’
Nico stepped towards them and stretched out a hand. ‘Massimo! Calm down! He’s confused, he doesn’t know what he’s saying.’
But there was something about the way Massimo recoiled from Nico as though he was expecting a blow that made me do a double take. Caitlin had been having sex with someone; that much I knew. But with ‘P’. Not Massimo. Surely she wouldn’t sleep with Nico’s brother?
While my mind was gathering evidence, sifting through what I knew for certain and scraping about for other moments and memories I’d overlooked, Massimo and Robert were squaring up to each other, oblivious to everyone else. Robert stood unsteadily with his hands on his hips repeating, ‘I saw you. You! I saw you! Sex with that woman!’
Massimo towered over him. ‘Shut up!’
But Robert wasn’t budging from his four-word refrain of ‘You, I saw you,’ nodding until he looked like he’d dislodge his remaining brain connections if someone didn’t believe him soon.
Nico grabbed Massimo’s upper arm. ‘Mass! That’s enough! He can’t help it, he’s ill.’
But Massimo shook Nico off and shoved Robert, ‘Shut up, you stupid old man!’
Robert went stumbling backwards, crashing into a glass coffee table and buckling at the knees.
Lara flew to her dad, screaming to Massimo, ‘Get off, get off him. He’s only telling the truth, you bullying bastard.’ She booted Massimo in the shins with such force that my own leg jolted. ‘Get away from us!’
Sandro started to cry. Before I could reach him, Francesca put her arm round him, but stood rooted to the spot, her eyes wide open in horror.
While Robert lay groaning on the floor, Massimo grabbed Lara under the jaw with an easy, practised movement, bringing her face up to his. She struggled and his hand tightened. He stared down at her, pressing a knuckle into the soft tissue between her collarbone and shoulder. She stopped trying to get away from him. ‘Don’t you dare kick me, you little cow.’
From the corner of the room, I heard a broken wail of ‘Mum!’ and saw Francesca hang onto Sandro to stop him running to Lara.
And slowly, like the creaking of a steam engine sitting for years in the sidings, all the pistons in my brain started to fire up. It was the way Lara’s body sagged in resignation that told me what I’d missed. She wasn’t fighting, wasn’t yelling or going nuts from the surge of adrenaline that goes with a new experience. There was no shock on Lara’s face, no astonished horror, just acceptance, a ‘Here we go again’.
This wasn’t an out-of-character one-off.
But before I could react, Nico grabbed Massimo by the shoulders and flung him off her. ‘Massimo! What the hell do you think you’re doing? You were half-strangling her!’
Lara rubbed her neck. She bent over Robert, easing him into a sitting position while I became everything I hated in a person, standing with my feet rooted to the sisal carpet, useless as a lamp post, not knowing who to help first. Lara looked as though someone had popped a champagne cork on her emotions.
She was shaking her head at Nico. ‘You’ve no idea what your brother’s like, have you? To you, he’s just a man who gets a bit competitive about sport now and again. But he’s not. He’s a bloody great bully who gets his own way by putting other people down, frightening them and – as you can see – hurting them. Ever wondered why Sandro is terrified to say boo to a goose? Well, that’s why.’
Massimo was saying, ‘Come on, I had to stop you attacking me – you nearly broke my shin.’ He was pulling a ‘Are you really going to listen to this crazy woman?’ face, which I was ashamed to say, I’d seen many times before and joined in with the joke. Now I realised that air of tenseness around Lara, as though she was in a car running out of petrol and it was touch and go whether she could limp to the garage, wasn’t because she was uptight and over-protective, or – as I’d often thought – she needed to ‘loosen up a bit’.
It was because she was scared.
I ran over to her and between us we helped Robert to his feet, shaking and confused, his rheumy old eyes fearful as I tucked my hands under his armpits. I touched Lara’s arm. ‘I’m sorry. I should have seen what was going on.’
‘No one could. Not even me, half the time.’
I helped her walk Robert halfway down the hall to the kitchen, with him resisting all the way, as though he couldn’t trust anyone any more. As Nico and Massimo’s voices got louder and louder in the lounge, she turned to me and said, ‘You go back in and see if you can calm them down. The kids shouldn’t be in there hearing all that. I can manage Dad.’
As I dashed back into the lounge, trying to process the family Armageddon I was witnessing, Dawn’s words came back to me: ‘The way he behaved over Ben was the final straw.’ The words I’d dismissed as the legacy of a bitter ex-wife.