‘Now?’ Bella checked.
‘Now.’
They headed out to his huge truck and Bella climbed in and turned to thank him but then she saw that he had opened his zipper.
‘First, though...’ he said, and Bella turned to get out, to run back into the shop, but then, in the side-view mirror, Bella saw a red car pulling up.
It was after seven.
She had been running all through the night, only for Malvolio to catch her here.
‘Drive,’ Bella said. ‘We can pull over a little further up.’
‘In a hurry?’ he checked, and Bella nodded. She could see Malvolio striding into the shop and she turned and gave the driver a smile.
‘Go, now,’ Bella said. ‘If you do I’ll make it up to you soon.’
And she did.
To her eternal shame she did.
What had happened between her and Matteo had never in the least shamed her but now she understood what her mother had meant about stigma. Bella would never tell another person about this, not even Sophie, but from that morning on and to this very day Bella considered herself a whore.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
‘SALUTE,’ SAID SOPHIE, despite the early hour, and they chinked champagne glasses as the plane carried them home.
Luka was sitting, going through his phone, Paulo was being shown to the bedroom, and soon Bella would move behind a curtained area and carry on with the final details that would complete Sophie’s dress.
‘Are you okay, Bella?’ Sophie asked. She could see, despite her smile, her friend’s swollen eyes and she knew she had been crying.
‘I will be.’
‘Luka just told me that Matteo isn’t bringing Shandy,’ Sophie said. ‘If that helps.’
‘It makes no difference to me.’ Bella shrugged and lied a little. ‘I’m not upset about him. I feel bad because I always swore that when I came home it would be to give my mother a decent stone for her grave.’
She knew that Malvolio had seen that her mother had got a pauper’s funeral.
‘I have a little saved but I don’t think it’s going to be enough.’
‘I feel terrible for using your savings...’
They had spent nearly all they had between them so that Sophie could walk into Luka’s office feeling proud but there was no need for Sophie to feel guilty and Bella shook her head. ‘Please don’t,’ she said. ‘We were always going to bring your father home.’ They had thought it would be for his burial. ‘At least we get to do it together, with champagne and with Paulo still alive. It has been money well spent.’
She smiled again but Sophie still didn’t believe that was all.
‘Bella, why do you still let Matteo think you’re...?’ Sophie glanced over and saw that Luka was still reading from his phone, but Bella knew what she was referring to and so answered without Sophie needing to elaborate.
‘Because I don’t want him to ever know how I really feel about him.’
‘But why?’
‘There’s no point.’ Bella shrugged.
‘Because of Shandy?’
Because of me, Bella wanted to say, but held in her words.
She knew Sophie didn’t get it—after all, she had no idea what had gone on during that trip from Sicily to Rome.
It was easier to act hardened in front of Matteo, to taunt and to tease than to reveal to him her truth—that she utterly loved him but, by his rules and her shame, Bella knew they could never be.
‘Hey!’ Bella, ever the chameleon, really did smile this time. ‘Maybe he isn’t bringing Shandy for a reason—even if we can’t have a relationship, perhaps I might make enough money for my mother’s stone!’
‘Bella!’ Sophie gave a shocked grin.
‘Why not?’ Bella sat there and laughed and actually warmed to the idea.
She hoped Luka didn’t jilt her friend, not just to save Sophie the shame but also because the best man and bridesmaid would dance and she wanted just a few moments with him, to be held in his arms again before she somehow got on with the rest of her life. ‘One night, no strings...’ she said, but then she shook her head.
She couldn’t do it to herself.
And, anyway, those hours spent last night crying bitterly about the past had served her well.
She wanted a better future.
‘After the wedding, and after I have given my mother a decent headstone, I am going to save up again...’
‘For?’
‘For me,’ Bella said. ‘I am going to apply one last time to design school and if that fails then I am going to have business cards made up and start a proper business. I’m going to make something of myself,’ Bella said. ‘I’m going to make the Gatti name something every woman wants to have in her wardrobe...’ She laughed as she stood. ‘Rather than what every man wants in the bedroom.’
She left Sophie laughing and moved to another seat and got on with stitching the tiny buttons onto Sophie’s dress. Last night’s reminiscing had put her behind but it was still all coming together beautifully.
When they got to Bordo Del Cielo she would remove the tissue paper and add a few final touches, then it would be gently hand-washed.
Bella had no modesty where her dressmaking was concerned, she knew it was going to be beautiful.
Sophie might just be about to become Sicily’s most beautiful jilted bride!
* * *
Bordo Del Cielo brimmed with memories—some painful and some so beautiful that they brought a different kind of agony. As they drove along the street that would take them to Paulo’s home, there was the welling of tears in Bella’s eyes and love in her heart for the land she missed every day.
At every turn of her head Bella wanted to let out a cry of recognition.
There was the river, where Matteo had got to on the night he had tried to escape.
A little further and there was a small lookout, where tourists stopped to take in the valley of forest, often missing the shaded path that would take them down to the baths.
On they drove and as the hotel came into view Bella remembered not the hours she had worked there or her fear in the bar but a night being made love to by Matteo.
Only from the beach would she be able to see the window of their room but as they turned off the main road Bella craned her neck for another glimpse, because, for her, true love had been found there.
Even the air tasted better, Bella thought as they stepped out of the car and took the path to Paulo’s old house.
‘We’ll go to the beach, to our secret cove...’ Bella said, as excited as a child on their holidays, but for now Sophie had to sort out her father, for the journey, albeit luxurious, had depleted him.
Luka declined coffee and said that he was heading to the hotel and Bella’s ears pricked up when he said that he was meeting with Matteo.
He must be here.
She showered and changed into a short black skirt and a pretty top that she pinched from Sophie then added earrings and did her make-up with care.
‘You look lovely.’ Sophie smiled.
‘Thank you, but it isn’t for Matteo.’
She would walk the streets of home with pride.
‘I might go for a walk,’ Bella said. ‘I would like to look at my old home, even if there are others living there.’
She soon found her home and it looked as if it was vacant. The flowerbeds that her mother had so carefully attended to were full of weeds and the windows were dusty and she had to wipe them to peer in.
Bella frowned because, though the furnishings seemed covered in sheets, it looked as if little had been moved or changed. It made no sense because Bella knew that property prices had soared since Malvolio’s death. Bordo Del Cielo was a tourist destination yet her old home seemed untouched.
She had left the place in haste. She hadn’t even spent a full night there since her mother’s collapse and she knew what she wanted to do.
She headed back to Paulo’s and there was a note from Sophie saying she had gone to the cemetery and Bella had the house to herself for a little while. She took the tissue paper out of the dress and used Rosa’s ancient sewing machine to sew two last blind seams and then, hearing them come back, Bella bundled the dress into a bag.
‘Are you going for another walk?’ Sophie smiled when she again headed out.
‘Who knows who I might bang into.’ Bella smiled because she was a tease, even with her friends.
She always did her best to keep things light, even if her heart was heavy.
Yet it wasn’t heavy today.
It was starting to heal.
Bella managed the kitchen window easily and was soon climbing in and she was home.
Finally home.
She remembered the terror of leaving, and that terror left her a little today.
She took off all the dust sheets and washed the windows so that sun streamed in, and she scrubbed down the floors because her mother had always been proud.
She went into her wardrobe and took out a dress of ginger and set to work with scissors and thread and then washed and hung it.
Then Bella washed Sophie’s gown with much loving care and, having rolled it in a towel and gently squeezed out the excess water, she hung it outside to dry in the Sicilian sun as she tended the little garden.
Bella pulled out weeds and exposed flowers that her mother had always loved.
She picked a bunch. Some had been planted, others were wild, and Maria would have adored each and every one.
She walked up the hill and into the churchyard.
Five years late for her own mother’s funeral, Bella knelt at her grave and what she saw brought happy tears to her eyes.