For a moment, so intense that it hurt, she had a vision of herself and Benji in a nice little house somewhere, with a little garden, on a nice road, and nice families all around. Nothing spectacular, just normal and ordinary and…nice. Somewhere decent to bring him up. Somewhere that was a real home.
She saw herself in the kitchen, baking cakes, while she watched Benji tricycle round a little paved patio, with a swing-set on the lawn beyond, a cat snoozing on the windowsill, washing hanging on the line. With next-door neighbours who had children, and hung up their washing, and baked cakes. Who lived normal, ordinary lives.
An ache of longing so deep inside it made her feel weak swept through her.
Across the bar, Rafaello’s dark eyes narrowed. She was taking the bait; he could see. It had been hard work to get her to this point—far harder than he had envisaged. But at last she was responding.
And the more time and effort he put into persuading her, the more he was convinced she was perfect for the job.
Dio, but his father would be apoplectic! His son presenting him with a bride who had a fatherless kid in tow and who cleaned toilets for a living. Who looked as drab and plain as the back end of a bus. That would teach him to try and force his hand—
Magda saw the gleam of triumph in the obsidian eyes and quailed. She must be insane even to think of thinking about what he had offered her! A hundred thousand pounds—it was ridiculous. It was absurd. Almost as absurd as the notion of a female like her marrying a man like that…for whatever lunatic reason.
‘I really do have to go,’ she said with a rush, and got to her feet. As she did so she must have jogged Benji’s chair, because he gave a sudden start and woke up. Immediately he gave out a little wail. Magda stooped down and cupped his cheek. ‘It’s OK, Benji. Mum’s here.’
The wail stopped, and Benji reached out one of his little hands and patted her face. Then, promptly, he started wriggling mightily, trying to free himself from his bonds.
‘It’s all right, muffin, we’re just going.’ She hefted him up onto her arm, shifting her leg to balance the weight. She picked up her cleaning box with her other hand.
‘I’ll…er…let myself out…’ she said awkwardly to the man who had just asked her to marry him, and who was still sitting on the other side of the bar, watching her through assessing eyes.
‘A hundred thousand pounds. No more cleaning. No more having to take your son around like this. It’s no life for him.’
His words fell like stones into her conscience—pricking it and destroying it at the same time.
‘This isn’t real,’ she said suddenly, her voice sounding harsh. ‘It can’t be. It’s just nuts, the whole thing!’
The thin, humourless smile twisted his mouth again. ‘If it’s any comfort, I feel the same way. But—’ he took a deep, sharply inhaled breath ‘—if I don’t turn up next month with a wife, everything I have worked for will be wasted. And I will not permit that.’
There was a chill in his words as he finished that made her shiver. But what could she say?
Nothing. She could only go. At her side, Benji wriggled and started to whimper.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said helplessly, but whether to Benji or this unbelievable man with his unbelievable proposition, she didn’t know.
Then she got out of the apartment like a bat out of hell.
Music thumped through the thin walls of the bedsit, pounding through Magda’s head. She’d had a headache all day, ever since finally making her escape from that madman’s apartment.
But what he had said to her was driving her mad as well. She kept hearing it in her head—a hundred thousand pounds, a hundred thousand pounds. It drummed like the bass shuddering through from next door, tolled like a bell condemning her to a life of dreary, grinding, no-hope poverty.
Would she ever get a decent home of her own? The council waiting list was endless, and in the meantime she was stuck here, in this bleak, grimy bedsit. When Benji had been a baby it hadn’t been so bad. But now that he was getting older his horizons were broadening—he needed more space; he needed a proper home. This wasn’t a home—it never could be—it was barely a roof over their heads.
Not that she was ungrateful. Dear God, single mothers in other parts of the world could die in a gutter with their children without anyone caring. At least here, the state system, however imperfect, provided an umbrella for her. Not that she hadn’t been pressed to give Benji up for adoption.
‘Life as a single mother is very hard, Miss Jones,’ the social worker had said to her. ‘Even with state support. You will have a much better chance to make something of yourself without such an encumbrance.’