The Enlightenment of Nina Findlay (48 page)

“By this time I was ignoring him and it was mutual, so I didn’t thank him anymore for tea trays, which meant I didn’t say thank you for coq au vin or the oven-cleaning, either, and of course Paolo noticed
that
.” Nina went up onto her elbows so she could see the doctor. “I was the first to crack. I cracked. It was as if Luca was waiting for me to apologize. What was I supposed to be guilty of? I couldn’t take it anymore, the silence in the apartment like fog, this damp and deadening fog. I was beginning to be ill.”

“And Paolo didn’t see?”

“Paolo thought my behavior was unaccountable. That was his word. You see, when Paolo appeared, Luca was sweetness and light and talkative. It was just like when we were young, except this time it was Paolo he allied himself with, and me who was ignored. Luca adjusted himself to talk like Paolo likes to talk. The two of them had nice evenings together, sitting for hours over Luca’s elaborate meals, the endless bottles of wine.” She gathered her thoughts. “So, one day I asked Luca if he wanted to walk with me to the park. He didn’t want to — that was his first reaction, to say no, but then something made him change his mind and off we went.” They went down the hill from the city to the Botanics, saying nothing to one another, walking alongside one another and saying nothing at all. They reached the circular pond, and stood looking at the fish and it was now or never. “I was so nervous. I said, ‘I don’t know why you’re being so weird with me, but I just wanted to say that I love you. I love you, you know.’ I didn’t mean it. I was afraid of him, I’d begun to loathe him, and I needed to stop feeling both of those things. He was supposed to say he loved me, too. He was supposed to play the game. He was supposed to explain himself. But he didn’t. He said I was sweet. Sweet: it’s a dagger in the heart.”

“Is it?”

“Oh God, yes.”

He said he was tired and that he was going back, and off he went, leaving Nina behind. When she got home she could hear that he was cooking, singing along to the Rolling Stones, so she went into her bedroom and wrote him an e-mail, one that was
quasi-hysterical. What had she done? How did she deserve this treatment? She couldn’t take any more, she said. She was at the end of her tether.

Five minutes later, a text message arrived.
We need to talk
.

Nina didn’t get it. She thought he was saying that they needed a proper talk. They weren’t together, so how could it be the other sort of
we need to talk
, the one that heralds the breakup? It didn’t even occur to her that Luca was breaking up with her.

She was heartened.
I’d like that very much
.

He texted again.
Nina, I’m not in love with you. Please stop this
.

Nina was stunned. What did he mean? When Paolo got home she was still writing the answering e-mail, a long e-mail, and this was the point at which it all got very complicated. Not because she wanted Luca, but because she was offended. She wasn’t having him saying he didn’t love her. She reminded him of how it had been between the two of them since childhood. She quoted him, from their lunch in the spring, when he’d said they should have been together. She cited examples, one after the other; the list of irrefutable things.

His reply was one line.
How much did you have to drink when you wrote this?!

Nina got into a sitting position. “Francesca had given him advice, in the letter to be opened after she died. Advice for a second marriage. Live somewhere far away from Nina, that was the gist of it. Like it was my fault and he was helpless to resist me. I was so upset by it. He’d always initiated, always always, and at the time, whenever it was happening, our double act, everybody but his
mother pretended to be amused. Everybody. Sometimes even Francesca.”

“Francesca was brave.”

Nina sat up straighten. “One thing I’ve learned: some men have affairs, intimate friendships, whatever, as a prelude to leaving their wives, and some men do it so they don’t have to.”

A reception was held that evening, a presentation of medals for service at one of Francesca’s charities. Francesca had been awarded one posthumously. Luca went to accept it on her behalf and wanted the whole family to be there. He made a speech, paying tribute to her and fighting his tears. Nina said to the president of the charity at the drinks afterwards that she didn’t feel she’d achieved anything. She hadn’t had children. She’d worked on not very great novels, nothing particularly great, her whole working life, and would leave no lasting mark. She’d lived a small life. He said that a small life was fine as long as you were happy in it, and didn’t impede or hurt others. Nina thought,
Jesus, how smug can you get?
But, then that night she couldn’t sleep.

Everyone went back to Luca’s apartment after the ceremony. Paolo made omelettes, and Nina was reprimanded by Maria for playing hostess. It was as if she’d dishonored Francesca and was flaunting the fact. Paolo was mystified by his mother’s hostility and told her off: what was she talking about? Somebody had to put the plates and glasses out. Luca sat motionlessly at the dining table, resting his chin on his hands, and didn’t seem to know where things were kept. Nina conceded directorship of the laying of the table to Maria, but then of course Maria didn’t know where the plates were kept either. She apologized. She said she was upset
and Nina said it was fine. Luca didn’t react to this at all, not to any of it.

The following morning, once Paolo had gone to the office, Nina went nervously into the kitchen to get breakfast and found that Luca was already there, typing madly and smiling at the screen. He spent his days mooching about in the apartment, in and out of rooms and up and down the hall, and Nina stayed in her bedroom, but it wasn’t possible to stay out of the kitchen entirely. She was standing at the toaster feeling miserable, looking at the bread in the slot as if it mattered, and heard his voice saying “Look,” and then “Nina.” She turned to face him and he said, “I’m really sorry.” He made a sorry face. Nina sat down in the chair across from him and said, “It’s okay.” It had to be okay. It couldn’t be anything but okay, because Francesca had died. Peace had to be made, and quickly.

He said, “I don’t really know what came over me. It’s not that it wasn’t wonderful sex. I’ll never forget it. I’ll cherish the memory always.” He seemed to be serious, but he must have known it wasn’t wonderful, at least not for Nina. It hadn’t even been something they’d shared. It’d been something done to her. She’d permitted it, his rapid, unromantic release, but she’d barely even participated. If he was prepared to lie so blithely about that, what else might he lie about? The other thing was that he seemed to have forgotten that he’d cut her dead afterwards, after the wonderful and cherished sex. He hadn’t made any reference, since the event in question, to
kindness and comfort
, the words he was going to use later, in his letter to Nina; the words he’d use when he discussed it with Paolo, as if Paolo should be proud of Nina for having sex with his brother.

It was all the wrong way round. She wasn’t having this going on the record, not even their own personal record. She said,
“Actually it wasn’t wonderful. It wasn’t really even sex. It was more like something that was done to me.”

Luca took grave and instant exception to this. He jumped up, his eyes bulging, his muscles all clenched. He came storming round to her side of the table, shouting, “What did you say?” roaring like a mad person, like an angry father who’s been disrespected. Nina got out of her chair as quickly as she could, pushing it towards him as a barrier and moving swiftly backwards and away. He kept coming. He pushed her with the flat of his hand.

He said, “Are you suggesting that you were raped?”

She was shaken. “Of course not.”

“Because you need to be very careful with your insinuations.” He was literally trembling with rage, his fists all gathered up. He left — he grabbed his coat and his laptop, his phone, and off he went, slamming the door. Then he came rampaging back in, coming intimidatingly close to her again, and pointing at her, jabbing the air. “You should’ve said no. You should’ve refused, the night I came over.”

“What?” She was absolutely thrown by this. “What?”

“You fucking slut.”

She couldn’t believe it. She gasped. “
What
did you call me?”

The look on his face was as if he’d eaten something foul and rotten. He said, “I’m wasting my time here,” and off he went.

Nina didn’t think he’d come back, other than to move out his stuff, but no. It turned out he’d gone straight to the office and announced that he felt ready to resume work.

Paolo brought Luca home with him at seven o’clock, all smiles, both of them in a notably good mood. They went and ensconced themselves in the kitchen, opening the first bottle and talking through the day’s events, and Luca made dinner, and things continued in that same vein, following the same pattern, for another
six days. Luca had long conversations with Paolo deep into the night, ones Nina wasn’t welcome to join. He needed Paolo now. He claimed Paolo back, and of course Paolo couldn’t help but be flattered by that, by being needed; he couldn’t help but be a little bit flattered by being preferred.

“The night I left, Luca had gone home, but it was only so he could get more of his stuff. That was the last straw. I went and stood in front of Paolo, who was reading, and said, ‘Paolo, do you think you and I are any longer in love?’ Suddenly that seemed to be the point. It seemed like that was the real problem.”

“Paolo didn’t see that Luca had put himself between you?”

At first, he thought Nina’s saying she was moving out was just flouncing. He thought it was childish. Luca had been immensely cheered up by looking after them, by being important to them and helping around the house. Luca was doing them a kindness, and it wasn’t possible to object to kindness, not in those circumstances, not without looking like a monster.

“All Paolo saw was me behaving badly. It even occurred to me that Luca was going to tell Paolo about the sex, in order to get me to move out, so he could have Paolo to himself.”

“He wouldn’t have done that.”

“That wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was yet to come.”