I did a rare thing; I kept my mouth firmly shut. After all, I wanted this man to mend my leg. If I antagonised him, he might not feel so inclined to make a good job of fixing me. Instead I cupped my hands around my ears and shook my head, pretending I couldn’t hear him.
As it turned out he instructed a younger doctor to operate on my leg and some hours later, I came round from the general anaesthetic to find myself in a small room on my own. Presumably the wards were all full of servicemen. I was told by a pretty young nurse who, believing I was still deaf, spoke slowly and with exaggerated care in pronouncing each word, plainly hoping I might be able to lip-read.
‘The operation went like clockwork,’ she said, pointing to my leg which was now in plaster and suspended from the ceiling by a contraption of wires and pulleys. ‘You’ll soon be up on your feet and flying again,’ she added with a smile.
I told her that my hearing had partially returned, and she went on to say that I was to take no notice of Dr Dorcas, that he was an old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud. ‘If you feel well enough, there’s somebody waiting to see you.’
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Who on earth could that be?’ I didn’t feel like seeing anybody, I was still feeling woozy from the anaesthetic, and was sure I could benefit from a dash of lipstick and a brush through my hair. But curiosity had the better of me.
The nurse grinned. ‘I’ll send him in. But don’t tell Dr Dorcas I let you have a visitor so soon or he’ll have my guts for garters.’
I promised it would be our secret and was surprised, and delighted, when minutes later she brought in my handsome rescuer, Matteo. He looked at me anxiously with his dark eyes, which I discerned now were clouded with what I recognised as sadness.
‘I thought you might like these’ he said with a shy smile, while holding out a small bunch of wildflowers.
‘How thoughtful of you,’ I replied.
‘I’ll fetch a vase,’ the nurse said brightly, leaving us alone, but not before winking at me. Her expression suggested that she considered me exceptionally lucky to have a ‘real looker’ like Matteo standing by the side of my bed.
I was inclined to agree with her, and whether or not it was the lingering effect of the anaesthetic, I had a strange feeling deep inside me – like an unfurling of something that had been locked tight for a long time – that this handsome Italian POW with his sad eyes was going to be somebody I would never forget. And not just because he had saved my life.
Chapter Twenty-Four
La Vista, Palm Springs
October 1962
Red
What was it about this woman that she could hold his attention the way she did?
Had it not been necessary for him to fetch the steaks to put on the grill and to mix another round of martinis, Red would gladly have gone on listening to Romily for the rest of the day. But his stomach had begun to rumble with all the subtlety of a jet engine taking off, and she’d laughed, saying that she had better be quiet or they would never eat.
Pouring the vodka into the shaker with the vermouth, adding ice cubes and then shaking vigorously, he smiled to himself. When Gabe and Melvyn had started up about him collaborating with an acclaimed novelist from England, he’d visualised a wrinkled grande dame in tweeds with a face like an old boot. Never did he imagine a captivating woman who had the power to stop him in his tracks. Maybe even make him consider the improbable, that he could fall in love with her.
He shook his head in disbelief at such an idea. He was not the type of man who believed in love at first sight. Sure there had to be some kind of initial spark of attraction, but that was as far as he was prepared to go. He had always believed that to love – to love heart, body and soul – one had to dig down deep to find that particular buried treasure.
With most women he held himself in check, giving only of himself that which he was prepared to offer. That was why nothing ever lasted. The relationships he’d experienced had always been flawed for the simple reason the women wanted more than he would provide. He never blamed them for wanting more, it was entirely his fault he couldn’t give them what they wanted, and he made a point of saying so.
But along had come Romily Devereux-Temple, and in twenty-four hours of knowing her, he was inexplicably thinking he might give more of himself to her than he had with any woman before. It was as if she had taken a knife to the locked-down shell of him and was prising it open to get at his heart.
To prevent that happening, he had no choice but to deploy his tried and tested old techniques of heavy-handed flirtation, knowing that she was not the kind of woman who would fall for it. But with each archly disapproving look she gave him, he felt that damned shell of his opening a tiny crack more.
To snap the shell shut again, to keep things entirely superficial, his tactic was to force her to keep talking about herself. While she spoke, he could observe her and figure out why he was reacting the way he was.
It was the damndest thing, but he could imagine that in another lifetime – when they’d both been young and carefree – she would have been the real deal for him. The whole enchilada, and some.
Had that Italian prisoner of war, Matteo, thought the same? Had he fallen under Romily’s spell the moment he set his so-called sad eyes on her? Irrationally Red felt jealous of the guy having the chance to save Romily, to prove himself a hero and capture her heart. Because it sure as hell sounded like that was exactly what had happened. And had she deliberately told Red that story to say, ‘Look buster, you stand no chance against the memory of my perfect husband, and what’s more you, old-timer with your artificial leg, you are certainly not in the same league as a sexy Italian man who rescued me from a blazing inferno!’
He pulled himself up short. What the hell was this! What was he doing writing himself off as some old-timer? God damn it; he was a successful Hollywood scriptwriter, a bloody war hero who had bedded more women than he could remember, even with half his leg missing! So why now should he doubt himself?
Because this particular woman could see right through him.
And because there came a time when a person had to accept the obvious, that life lived on a superficial level was no longer enough. And at the age of fifty-six, he had reached that point.
Gabe and Melvyn had said much the same to him only a few weeks ago.
‘Don’t you get tired of being the eternal playboy?’ Gabe had said.
‘Haven’t you ever wanted to settle down?’ Melvyn had asked.
They were both devout family men, which was unusual for Hollywood, where affairs were all part of the crazy merry-go-round.
He’d indulged in affairs with a few married women himself, a couple of actresses too, seeing that as an easy way to avoid having to get too serious. Such was the strict rules laid down by the studio bosses, no actress wanted her extracurricular activities made known, so they were as safe a bet as any for allowing him the pleasure of sex without commitment.