In the end I couldn’t bear it any longer. ‘Slow down! Just stop it!’

Massimo shouted through to the back. ‘Who thinks Lara’s a scaredy-cat?’ Sam was shouting at Massimo to go faster, with Francesca joining in, though I thought I detected a note of fear in her voice. But Massimo was always telling her how brave she was, ‘tough as old boots, determined like your mother’, usually followed by ‘unlike my great big wuss of a son’. She was never going to be my ally.

I thought about my mother driving along, sticking to the speed limits, leaning forward over the steering wheel, close to the windscreen, the perfect example of ‘mirror, signal, manoeuvre’. Yet she hadn’t stood a chance when the lorry had veered over the central reservation on the dual carriageway. Now, Massimo was breaking every rule in the book – probably over the limit, showing off, speeding – if we hit anything, we’d be thrown out of the car, smashed onto the verges like boiled eggs cracked on the top by a spoon. I begged. ‘Stop! Stop!’ but Massimo just stepped harder on the accelerator, laughing as the tyres squealed round the corners. I clung onto the door with my right hand and slipped my other one between the seats to find Sandro. His fingers grabbed mine and we hung onto each other in silent fear.

By the time we screeched up to the castle, I had wet patches under the arms of my T-shirt and cramps searing through my stomach. Anna’s car wasn’t home of course. As fast as my trembling legs would move, I scooped up a tearful Sandro, running up the stone staircase to our bedroom. I tucked Sandro into his bed, smoothing his hair back from his face and feeling the pull of that dream vision of us in a little flat, where he’d never be frightened again.

Where I’d never be frightened again.

I got into bed quickly, hoping I might get away with pretending to be asleep. By the time Massimo decided to follow, he’d obviously had another couple of drinks. Outside in the corridor, he was full of bonhomie, doing his big man ‘You need anything, anything at all, just ask,’ to Beryl and high-fiving Sam: ‘My plucky little co-pilot’.

Once he was inside with those thick medieval walls soundproofing his anger, he steamed about our bedroom, thumping the poles of the four-poster bed. ‘You made me look like a complete dick tonight. No resounding endorsement from my wife on the sex front, was there? I bet they think I can’t even get it up. God, I’ve been so unlucky with my wives. One stupid cow who didn’t want children and another who produces a kid afraid of anything and everything and then can’t get pregnant again.’

If I’d drawn a template of our holidays, I was sure Massimo’s graph would look the same, year on year. Initial excitement at having a break from work. Rumbling irritations at having to be with everyone twenty-four/seven. Other people in the party daring to have their own needs, wants and opinions that didn’t slot directly into his template for the perfect world. Renewed criticism of the traits in Sandro that he found ‘pathetic/spineless/whining’. Frustration that Sandro wasn’t more ‘gutsy, like Francesca’. Temperature rise over trivial incident. Apologies, calm for a few days. Final blow-up, followed by charm personified and a discussion on the way home about how he considered that holiday up there among the best ones ever.

I lay rigid in the bed, ready to spring up or fight him off me if necessary. The conversations Massimo and I had were like a scene from a quiz show, where someone was trying to sing one song while a different tune was playing through the headphones. The effect was the same – a jumble of mixed messages – but with no hope of the jackpot at the end. I gathered the energy for a rebuttal. ‘I didn’t say anything about sex. I’ve never discussed our sex life with anyone. You were the one who decided to broadcast the fact we couldn’t have any more children.’

I realised too late I’d made a mistake. One of the many. I’d dared to flop an accusatory ‘You were the one…’ out into the airspace.

‘You made me feel this big,’ Massimo said, shoving his thumb and forefinger together in front of my nose.

Sometimes I got away without answering and just let him rant on until he ran out of steam. But tonight, he wanted an answer. No response would satisfy him. And this evening, I couldn’t make myself contrite. The smug, satisfied look on his face as he explained the plot to Pelléas and Mélisande was playing on a slow-moving loop in my head, against a backdrop of ‘You might find you’re in love with the wrong brother.’ The words I usually used to take the heat out of the situation deserted me. I couldn’t suck in my anger that it was pure luck that we’d got home alive. That when I’d begged him to stop, he’d taken pleasure in playing on my fear. That he’d put our son in danger, not to mention the rest of the kids.

I sat up in bed. ‘You bastard. You complete arsehole. My mother died in a car accident. My life was changed forever because of it. But because your stupid little ego had taken umbrage because I hadn’t stood up in the streets of San Gimignano and told the whole world at the top of my voice what a great big Italian stallion you were in bed, you decided to drive like a total dickhead.’ Even I flinched at my language, as though someone standing behind me was shouting it on my behalf.

Massimo would probably have looked less surprised if the woman with the frilly nightie in the portrait by our bed had suddenly popped out of the picture and taken him to task.

He opened his mouth to respond, a big blue vein throbbing on the side of his head, like an earthworm slithering along below the soil surface.

Surprise at me fighting back stalled him for a moment, but his chest was rising, air was entering his lungs, ready to be expelled in an invective designed to bring me back into line. He managed to get out: ‘Don’t you ever—’

‘Ever what? Ever swear at you? Ever voice an opinion? Ever mention the small fact that you’re a bloody great bully who gets off on intimidating his son until he’s half-choking with fright? Look at you. The big man waving his wallet about, the jovial chap with the word for everyone.’

Massimo had his hand up. ‘Shut up you stupid bitch! I’d like to see where you’d be without me. Who do you think got you the promotions at work? You’d never have made it past photocopying my reports if I hadn’t been pulling the strings. You’d still be living at home with your doolally dad while he drank the bathwater and ate the cat food.’

A voice in my head was telling me not to make the final leap. That once it was out there, my world as I knew it would not just be shaken, but smashed to smithereens. But Massimo using my dad to taunt me acted like a battering ram against the last little stick of self-preservation.

I swung my legs out of the bed. ‘Don’t give me that “You’d be nowhere without me”. It’s a miracle I’ve survived at all. Sorry if I’m not suitably grateful that the fascinating, oh so generous Massimo chose ordinary old me. But do you know what? I don’t actually feel very grateful right now. I know what you did. It’s taken me some time to work it out, but even “a thick cow” like me got there in the end. And now you’ve had your fun, I’m going to have mine. When I get up tomorrow morning I’m going to take your mother for a coffee. Sit her down with a nice little latte and explain to her how her precious firstborn was having an affair with her youngest son’s wife.’

I grounded my feet. I rubbed my lips together and swallowed, preparing to produce a scream to shatter the stained glass in the chapel below if he so much as jabbed a finger in my direction. The noise of my heart seemed to be in my ears. Energy was surging into my fingertips, all the tiny bones in my feet contracting ready for action.

He stood opposite me, chest out, fists flexing. I glanced at the door. I’d never make it. And I almost didn’t care. I was suspended in that split second between release and pain, as though a boil had been lanced and relief blocked out the stinging agony that would follow. I stared at him, throwing down the challenge, trying to dam the fear already filling the void where all those feelings I’d buried had resided. I wanted to cover my head, protect my face, from those hands.

Those tender, gentle, vicious hands.

Then Massimo buckled to the floor, tears leaching down his face, dark curls clinging to his hairline in damp tendrils.

‘I’m so sorry.’

35

LARA