New Title 1 (23 page)

He twisted his fingers
unhappily. I could tell he felt bad about charging me, but I was determined to pay my debts. I pulled out my wallet expectantly.

He sighed. “Forty Euros, signorina.”

“Thank you, signore. You have a very pleasant establishment.”

“Grazie, signorina.”
He bit his lip and tried to smile.

“Can I book a cab to pick me up and take me to the airport?”

“Ah, regretfully, signorina, taxis do not like driving up my narrow road, but if you walk two kilometers towards Quinto Al Mare, you will find a taxi office.”

I thanked him, hefted the
bag over my shoulder, and strode out into the beautiful Spring morning.

I
’d got as far as the main road when I heard Sebastian’s bike roaring up behind me.

My stomach lurched, twisting
with anxiety. When I heard him cut the engine, I put my head down and walked as quickly as I could.

“Caro, wait!”

He jogged up behind me and grabbed the handles of the bag, forcing me to stop.

“Caro, I
’m sorry. Okay? Are you going to talk to me?”

“I think you
’ve said enough – for both of us.”

“Fuck, Caro! It was the
alcohol talking, that’s all.”

“It was more than that and you know it, Sebastian.”

“Can’t you take a fucking apology?”

“I don
’t know: can you make one?”

We stood staring at each other; both hurt, both angry.

He ran his hand over his hair and scowled. “Can we just go somewhere and talk? Or are you going to walk back to Geneva?”

I folded my arms and glared at him. “Yes, frankly. I was going to get a cab to drive me to
the airport. I’m sure I’d have no trouble getting a flight.”

“Don
’t leave like this, Caro,” he said, in a slightly less aggressive tone. “Let’s just talk and if we can’t… fix this, I’ll take you to the airport myself.”

Damn him!

I nodded coldly and let him carry the bag. Silently he passed me my helmet, and stowed our solitary piece of luggage in the saddlebag.

He climbed on the bike and held out his hand to help me, but I preferred to scramble on by myself. And, instead of fastening my hands around his waist, I held on to the small grab-bar at the rear of my seat. It was uncomfortable and I didn
’t feel very safe, but it was preferable to touching him.

He swung the bike
around in a slow U-turn and headed southeast, away from the airport, following the coast road. After a few miles, he pulled into a parking lot next to a beach café in the small town of Bogliasco.

“Do you want a coffee?”
he said, stiffly.

“An espresso and a glass of water, please.”

He placed the orders with a bemused waiter, who clearly hadn’t been expecting any customers so early. In fact, I suspected that we’d interrupted his morning gossip with his cronies, a group of grizzled old men who eyed us curiously, but relaxed when they heard Sebastian speaking in Italian. The waiter ambled away with reasonably good grace.

I stared across at Sebastian
’s beautiful sullen face, wondering why we were even bothering. I realized his eyes looked rather red: obviously he’d chosen to dive straight into a bottle of whiskey last night, or grappa, perhaps. He stared out at the water, refusing to look at me or to speak. Not a great start to ‘talking’.

Our coffees arrived along with a basket of rolls, and I wondered who was going to break the silence first.

He pushed the basket towards me.

“No, thank you.
I’ve already eaten.”

“
Did you check out of that place?”

“Yes.”

“Did you pack up my stuff?”

I blinked at him. “Of course!”

“Okay, thanks. What do I owe you for the room?”

“Nothing. Forget it.”

“Just tell me what I owe you, Caro.”

“Seeing as you didn
’t stay in it, I don’t see why you should pay.”

“Is this how you
’re going to be?”

“How would you like me to be, Sebastian? Because,
honestly, I just don’t know.”

He grabbed a roll and started tearing it into pieces.

“Look, maybe we should just cut our losses,” I said. “I’ll get a cab to the airport and you can… do whatever you want, Sebastian.”

For a moment I thought he was going to agree, but then he looked down at the crumbs on his plate.

“I don’t want you to go,” he muttered.

I waited for more: an explanation for his behavior, perhaps. But he was silent.

And then realization hit me with the force of a Sherman tank, why he was struggling to find the words: he’d never done this before. Ever. He hadn’t had a girlfriend in any real sense of the word since he was 17, and that relationship had ended abruptly without any desire for reconciliation on his part. From there, he’d plunged straight into a turbulent affair with me, which hadn’t exactly honed his relationship skills either. By his own admission, he’d fucked Stacey’s best friend as his version of solving their problems. He had no clue how to cope with the complex emotions of an adult relationship. Last night, his first reaction had been to run and hide in a bottle. No wonder he was finding this so difficult. As far as relationships went, he was on virgin territory.

I
considered the fact that he actually wanted to talk to me was a step forward.

I
’d been married for 11 years, and although that had ended in dismal failure, at least I had some vague idea of how relationships worked, or should work. And I’d dated two guys since Sebastian. Sort of. Sure, those hadn’t panned out either, but for quite mundane reasons. Bob had moved to Cincinnati with his job; and Eric had traded up to a younger, wealthier model; I didn’t count the one night stand with Allessandro, a reporter I’d met in Mexico. We were still in touch, occasionally.

“Sebastian, you
’re going to have to tell me why on earth you’d want me to stay,” I said, gently. “Last night you said some pretty unpleasant things: and I’m not going to accept your explanation about having drunk too much. It’s pretty clear that you’ve been hanging on to a lot of anger – towards me. And I don’t know what I can do about that.”

He slouched down in his chair, looking for all the world like a sulky teenager. He seemed to be waging some
sort of internal battle, but eventually he straightened up and looked me in the eye.

“Caro, did you really try and find me when I turned 21?”

And here we were again.

“I
’ll tell you exactly what I told you before: I wrote to Shirley, and I wrote to Donna. But no, I didn’t try and find you directly, because I simply wanted to know that you were okay. When both letters were returned unopened, I suppose I took it as an omen that it wasn’t to be. I didn’t feel I had the right to interrupt your life and risk doing further damage. I felt a great deal of guilt at the devastation I left behind me: I didn’t want to remind you of all that, or make you feel any obligation towards me. It never occurred to me that you… that you’d be waiting for me.”

He leaned forward, his eyes intense and angry. “But I
said
I’d wait for you. I promised I’d wait. Hell, Caro, it was the last thing I got to say to you. And you… you said…” he bit his lip, hesitating.

I
’d promised to love him forever
.

An ugly wave of guilt rushed through me
, and finally I could see how it had looked from his point of view: I hadn’t tried hard enough – I’d let him down.

“Oh, Sebastian… I’m so very sorry.”

What could I say that would wash away so many years of hurt?

His voice dropped to a whisper. “Did you mean it, Caro? Did you mean it when you said you loved me?”

“Yes, tesoro, I did. I loved you very much. But you’re not the person I knew ten years ago. The Sebastian I knew was sweet and gentle and loving, but you… you can be like that, but your anger scares me. The hatred I saw in your face and heard in your words – that was hard for me. I can see that you think I let you down badly ten years ago, or seven years ago… and I can’t tell you how sorry I am for that, but I can’t fix it either – I can’t change the past.”

He turned away, staring out at the
sea.

“I
’m confused about what you want from me, Sebastian. One minute you say we’ve been given a second chance and that we should try again, and the next minute you’re blaming me for every bad decision you’ve taken in the last ten years. If you hate me that much, if you resent me that much, why am I here?”

“I don
’t hate you, Caro,” he murmured.

“Sebastian, you called me a liar; you said you could never trust me.”

He winced, but I was determined to see this out.

“You asked me to come with you on this trip, and then the first time something goes wrong, you fling th
e past in my face. If you really believe I did what I did because I didn’t care, then I don’t see how we’re going to get past that.”

I hoped he
’d offer something, some insight as to what he was thinking, but his lips remained pressed together.

“Look.
I wouldn’t be who I am now if I hadn’t met you – that’s the truth. I’d probably still be locked in a loveless marriage. But that’s only half the story.”

Finally he looked at me.

“It was really tough for me when I got to New York. I had almost no money, no contacts, nowhere to live, no job. Do you want to know how I survived? I cleaned people’s houses; I scrubbed their toilets. For three years. Until eventually I earned enough from my writing.”

“I didn
’t know,” he said, softly.

“No, because you didn
’t give me the chance to answer you last night.”

I wondered if he could see how cruelly he
’d behaved, but his next question took a different turn.

“You said you dated a couple of times.”

“Excuse me?”

“The first night we talked. I asked you if you were seeing anyone, and you said you
’d dated a couple of times.”

“Yes, so?”

“When?”

“What, you want dates?”