‘Stop it!’ My voice sounded as though it was coming from a distant hill, where the wind had removed all power and just a feeble echo remained. I stepped forward. ‘Nico! Don’t do this. You’re better than that. Better than him.’

As though an alarm clock had suddenly penetrated a deep, red wine sleep, Nico stopped dead, his chest heaving. I glanced at Massimo, who, despite his split lip, was still managing to contort his face into a sneer, his fingers clenching and unclenching. Nothing like the charming man I’d believed he was. I stood in front of Nico and stared Massimo down.

‘What do you know about me, Maggie? What do you know about anything? Except how to gold-dig?’

Nico sent out a growl of anger to my left. I put out my hand to stop him moving towards Massimo. Of course I registered that blow, the slice into a wound that was always ready to split open. But I wasn’t the one who was going to feel bad. Oh no. Not at all. I could almost hear my inner steel oiling itself up for action.

The Beryl in me came out. ‘Here’s what I know. I don’t go through life getting what I want by hurting people. I also know it doesn’t matter what I say, how much I love Nico, your shrivelled little heart won’t ever be able to believe I’m with him for anything other than money because people like you don’t understand working together, looking out for each other. They only understand getting their own way.’ To my credit, I did pause for a second’s consideration before I let my killer point out into the world. ‘You might be right that I’m a bit thick. It’s taken me all this time to realise what you’re really like. But I met someone today who put me in the picture. And I didn’t want to believe her. I was hoping she just had an axe to grind, that her story wasn’t the truth.’

Massimo’s eyes pinged up like a cartoon dog’s. He was having to work harder at that sneer.

‘Yes, I bumped into Dawn today. You do know that your “other” son is a swimming champion? That the boy you abandoned because he was “defective”, as you put it, came first in the swimming championships Francesca has just been to?’

Nico put his hand on his hips. ‘What other son?’

The relief that only Massimo knew about Ben gave my anger a sharper edge. ‘Tell him, Massimo. Tell him how Dawn had to run away because she was afraid you would make her abort your own son because he had a heart problem.’

Nico was shaking his head, disbelief flooding his face. ‘What? I thought you said she didn’t want children.’

Massimo looked at the floor. Just for a second, I felt a sliver of sympathy for him. He’d behaved like an absolute arse but I couldn’t bring myself to believe he’d done it without a lot of heartache.

But that little pause was just to allow Massimo time to reload. When he looked up again, he’d narrowed his eyes as though he was flicking through a mental armoury of weapons he could use to wound me. ‘Don’t come that holier than thou shit, Maggie. At least I’m not a thief.’

I wasn’t quite sure how being a thief was worse than intimidating your wife so much that she had to flee and hide to save her baby. But today didn’t seem to be about rational arguments. He’d picked the wrong insult to throw at me.

‘I’m not a thief. I’ve never stolen a thing in my life. I couldn’t give a shit about money. Nico is always wanting to buy me this, that and the other, but I’ve seen what trying to keep up with everyone else does to people and believe me, I am happy as I am.’

‘What about the gold box you “lost”?’

I felt a rush of betrayal that Lara had told him. ‘I had to get rid of it. And you know why.’ I glanced at Nico, wishing I could save him from the truth.

‘Why? Come on, we’re all family here. Do share with us why you felt you had to take a box worth hundreds of pounds.’

‘How would you know how much it was worth?’

‘Francesca told me that you’d stolen a real gold box.’

I should have known Lara wouldn’t give Massimo any ammunition against me. ‘Fuck off, Massimo. You know how much it was worth because you’re the one who bought it for Caitlin.’

Nico looked as though he was standing in a room where everyone was fluent in a language he’d only just started to learn. I wanted to pause, to bring him up to speed, anything to stop him seeing the world as a place where the people he loved the most lied and kept secrets from him.

‘What proof have you got that I gave it to her?’

I couldn’t quite believe he’d admitted shagging his brother’s wife but wanted to split hairs over whether or not he’d given Caitlin a present.

‘Because of the inscription. That was you, wasn’t it? Why “P” though?’

A slight raising of the eyebrows that I’d discovered the inscription. He waited until he had our full attention. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of us hanging onto his every word, but he was mesmerising, a gypsy-haired villain deciding whether or not to put us out of our misery.

Finally he laughed. And started humming. The music from Pelléas and Mélisande. That’s where I’d recognised it from. No run-of-the-mill bloke next door affair for Massimo. He’d cast himself in the role of the tragic sibling, in love with his brother’s wife. In his warped mind, he was Pelléas – P. He must have been laughing his head off at my na?ve questions when we were watching the opera in San Gimignano.

I turned to face Nico, wondering if I was up to the job of repairing the damage of the betrayal by his first wife and his brother, as well as convincing him I wasn’t the light-fingered chancer Massimo was making me out to be.

‘Nico, I didn’t steal that box. I took it but I didn’t sell it or anything. I chucked it away. In a skip. Maybe I should have just shown you what I’d found.’ My voice was shrinking. I couldn’t have sounded more defensive if he’d caught me climbing out of a window with a bag marked ‘Swag’. ‘I couldn’t see the point of telling you Caitlin had been unfaithful. I knew you’d be devastated and it was all in the past. I was worried you or Francesca would find the box and read the engraving. You’d have known straightaway it was from a lover. I was trying to protect you both. But I didn’t realise all the stuff was from Massimo.’

Nico’s face was blotchy with emotion. He was swallowing over and over again as though he was fighting the great swell of feelings whirlpooling inside him. I was longing to give him space to cry. To shout at me. To vent his anger, sadness, despair, whatever it was trapped inside, in all its rawness. But I didn’t want Massimo to see him crumple. Or let him witness me dealing with how much Nico had loved Caitlin.

I took Nico’s hand, running my fingers over his rough skin. He didn’t pull away. A rush of emotion, a desire to protect him and to have revenge on Massimo overwhelmed me.

‘I’m sorry. I made a shit choice about the whole bloody box thing. Come on, let’s get out of here. I’ll just check on Lara. You go next door and talk to Francesca.’ I couldn’t bring myself to say home.

After living there for ten months, I belonged less than ever.

Nico shook his head. ‘I’ll wait for you.’

‘No, I’ll be fine. Francesca needs you. She’s in a terrible state. I’ll be right round, just want to make sure Lara’s okay.’ I didn’t add ‘safe’.

Nico turned to Massimo. ‘I looked up to you. I thought you had the world sussed. I envied you. But more than that, I loved you and would have done anything for you.’

I stood by helplessly as Nico walked out, shaking his head as though he couldn’t believe what had just happened. One thing I knew for sure. Gold-digging had nothing to do with my love for Nico. In that moment, I’d have taken his raw hurt and let it devour me alive rather than see him in such unbearable pain.

45

LARA

After ten years, the biggest change in my life had happened in half an hour.

When Maggie came into the kitchen, she put her hand on Dad’s shoulder. ‘You all right, Robert?’

He didn’t reply. My poor dad, the man I wanted to protect, was huddled on a chair, swaying backwards and forwards. God knows what damage we’d done to him.

Maggie put her hand in my dad’s until he stopped rocking.

Eventually he looked at her. ‘You’re pretty.’

She smiled at him. Not Maggie’s usual ferocious grin that made her look about fifteen but a gentle smile that held a mix of kindness and sadness. ‘You’re not so bad yourself, Robert.’

He winked at her. My old dad, the man I’d totally failed to look after, still had the energy to wink. I didn’t think I’d ever loved him more for that little flash of spirit, the proof that inside the jumbled mass of fading connections, a bit of his steadfastness, his strength remained.

My eyes filled. Maggie pulled me into her arms. And for once, I didn’t have to hold myself in, didn’t have to stand there like a shop dummy in case I relaxed and opened the door onto something I would later have difficulty explaining away.