He told me that he had learned English from an excellent teacher at school, and that he had been an officer in the Italian army and had been captured in North Africa. As a POW here at Tilbrook Hall, he helped in the infirmary as well as worked on the nearby farm with the land girls. He was considered to be a ‘white prisoner’, which meant he was a low risk POW with no political motivation. As a consequence, he was given a certain amount of freedom, such as joining in with local events in the village.
I was perfectly capable of doing it myself, but he read to me, borrowing books from the library. The owners of Tilbrook Hall, who had decamped to their Belgravia house, had given permission for their library to be at the disposal of the medical staff, as well as the patients.
He was reading to me now and it amused and charmed me to hear Great Expectations read with a gorgeously seductive Italian accent. Never had Dickens sounded so good! It may have been the effect of the strong medication I was given, but I could have listened to Matteo reading the telephone book and it would still have had my mind wandering into dangerous waters.
He was the first man I had encountered since my husband’s death with whom I had experienced an attraction. Until now I had been unable to imagine another man’s touch, never mind the kind of passionate intimacy I had enjoyed with Jack. Everyone had told me that I would one day fall in love again, that it would just take time. Had sufficient time now passed?
‘Would you prefer I stopped reading to you?’
I opened my eyes to see Matteo regarding me intently. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘why don’t you put the book down and tell me some more about yourself and your life back in Italy?’
‘What would you like to know?’
‘What did you do before you became a soldier?’
‘It is hard sometimes to remember that I had a life before the world went mad.’
‘Please tell me about it. Unless,’ I added tactfully, ‘it will make you too homesick?’
He closed the book and placed it carefully on the cabinet beside my bed. ‘I grew up on the Island of Ischia and it was expected that I would become a doctor just like my father. “People”, my father would say, “will always need a doctor, so you will always be in work.” I did what he wanted and studied medicine and became a doctor.’
‘So that is the reason you help out here in the infirmary?’
‘Yes. And for some years I enjoyed what I did, but all I had ever dreamt of doing was paint. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted that more than anything in the world.’
I nodded. ‘But to defy your father would have been out of the question?’ I said, taking in his sensitive face with its fine features and enviably long lashes, and the gentle cadence to his voice.
‘Everyone thought I was crazy, but yes, I disappointed my family by giving up medicine to go and study at the Accademia di Brera in Milan, then I went to Florence. I never felt so alive as I did during that time. It was as if I had been born again.’
‘To be the person you were meant to be?’ I suggested.
‘Yes,’ he said, his dark eyes opening wide, his expression brightening, ‘that was just how I felt.’
‘Were you then able to make a living from painting?’
‘I did, I am happy to say. If that does not sound too . . . too arrogant of me.’
‘I would love to see something you’ve painted.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Of course. Do you have access to any painting materials here?’ I was thinking that maybe I could arrange for that to happen. I was thinking also how much I would like to do something for this intense and quietly spoken man. If only so I could see the melancholy fade from his eyes.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘In fact, I arrange a painting class here for the other POWs. It gives them something to do. Some of them are beginning to show some talent.’
I heard the pride in his voice and the poignancy of it touched me deeply. It made me more determined to do what I could for him, to help him feel less of a prisoner. I suppose that was when I began to fall in love with him.
Chapter Thirty-Two
La Vista, Palm Springs
October 1962
Red
‘Just what the hell is going on there?’
‘Nothing’s going on, Gabe,’ Red lied.
‘The hell there isn’t! I’ve just been talking to Romily and she says she’s flying home tomorrow.’
‘She’s a grown woman who’s perfectly entitled to fly home any time she chooses.’
‘And what about the script?’
‘There isn’t going to be a script. Not if she’s leaving.’
‘Hey, don’t you dare try laying this one on Romily. If she’s going it’s because you’ve made her go. What did you do?’
‘Nothing. We just didn’t rub along like you imagined we would.’
‘Romily gets on with everyone. She’s a professional in all respects, so don’t give me any bunkum about her—’
‘Gabe, it didn’t work out, so just give it a rest, will you? You win some, you lose some.’
‘Yeah, and guess what, Melvyn and I are the ones losing out here. And I’ll tell you this for nothing, you won’t get another God-damned chance to work with us again.’
‘Go on, go the whole hog-roast with your threat. Tell me I won’t work in this God-damned town ever again!’
‘Don’t tempt me!’
Gabe’s rant went on for some minutes more and when he’d seemingly run dry of invective, and after Red had pointed out that the studio could easily find another writer to work with Romily, he put down the telephone and poured himself a large bourbon. It was one of many which he’d consumed in the hours since Romily had left. By rights he should be drunk, but he was stone cold sober. A little blurring around the edges would suit him plenty, if he were honest. But no such luck. He could see things all too clearly and he didn’t like what he saw. No sir.
Some would say he was a flawed man who just needed to work things through, but he was beyond that. Well beyond putting right the many crimes he’d committed.
For some strange reason women liked flawed men. They liked nothing better than a wounded man, or a man with some inner conflict who was fighting his demons. Put the two together and it was jackpot time. Before losing his leg, he would have believed an injury of that nature would limit his options when it came to women, but not a bit of it; it was like catnip to them. He soon realised he could put the injury to good use and exploit women for his own ends. It was all an attempt to soothe his ego, and convince himself that he was still in the game. No matter that his actions were in danger of turning him into an arrogant and manipulative bastard.