Angel Of Darkness

‘He wasn’t in love with me...he just wanted to get me into bed like all the rest!’ Kelda fielded.

‘But he must have been terribly hurt to take an overdose like that, and maybe if you’d gone to see him in hospital—’

‘I’d have finished him off!’ Kelda broke in rawly. ‘He took an overdose because his wife found out he’d been seeing me. He took it to get back in with her and then he spilt his guts in that filthy newspaper to get his own back on me!’

‘It was wicked of him to tell all those lies about you.’ Daisy’s large blue eyes were swimming with tears. ‘I told Angelo that you’d never had an affair with anyone...’

‘P-Pardon?’

Her mother reddened. ‘I wanted Angelo to know that there wasn’t a word of truth in any of it. You’re not that sort of girl.’

Kelda was in agony. She adored her mother but she had never come closer to killing her! ‘Kelda’s saving herself for marriage.’ She could just hear her mother saying it! And she could see Angelo, struggling not to choke on his wine, sardonically amused by her mother’s blind faith in her daughter’s virtue. Hellfire embarrassment scorched Kelda.

‘Well...what do you think?’ Daisy asked hesitantly.

‘About what?’

‘About me marrying Tomaso again?’

Kelda steeled herself. ‘I think you’d be making the biggest mistake of your life. But of course...it’s your decision.’

‘I suppose the idea of us all being a f-family together is a little fanciful.’ Looking stricken, Daisy was visibly swallowing back tears of disappointment.

Kelda felt torn apart by guilt but she reminded herself that it was for her mother’s own good. ‘Have you given him an answer yet?’

‘No,’ Daisy conceded tightly.

‘If you do marry him, I’ll hardly cut you off...I expect we can still meet for lunch occasionally...’

‘Y-yes,’ Daisy gulped, bending her head. ‘But you and I are so close...what about weekends?’

‘I will never cross the threshold of any house that harbours Angelo as a regular visitor,’ Kelda stated without apology.

* * *

‘You mean she just dropped it on you?’ Her brother Tim burst out laughing. ‘Isn’t that just Daisy?’

It was the following day. They were lunching in a wine-bar round the corner from the insurance company where Tim worked.

‘It wasn’t funny! Why didn’t you warn me?’ Kelda snapped, throwing an icy glance of hauteur at the man at the next table, who had sat fixedly trying to catch her eye ever since she sat down.

Tim followed her gaze ruefully. ‘The Iceberg buries another victim...’

‘I loathe that stupid nickname!’ She set her perfect white teeth into a celery stick and crunched. As she chewed, she flung her head back, her mane of entirely natural pre-Raphaelite curls rippling back over her slim shoulders in tongues of fire. ‘Don’t use it!’

‘OK...OK!’ Tim held up both hands in mock surrender.

‘Why didn’t you tell me she was seeing Tomaso again?’

His mobile features tensed. ‘I guessed how you’d react.’

‘I bet you said nothing, you lily-livered swine!’ Kelda hissed across the table at him. ‘You don’t care if Tomaso runs around with other women behind her back!’

Tim had gone red. ‘I don’t think it’s any of my business.’

‘Oh, I’m all right, Jack!’

Tim grimaced. ‘How much of the way you feel has to do with Angelo?’

Kelda froze. ‘It’s got nothing to do with him!’

Tim gave her an unimpressed glance.

‘I can’t stand him...that’s true.’ Her restive hands snapped a carrot stick in two but she held his gaze fiercely. ‘But it’s Mum’s best interests that concern me.’

‘You’re terrified of Angelo.’ Tim looked almost amused.

‘Don’t be ridiculous...I loathe and despise him... I’m certainly not afraid of him!’

Tim sipped his wine. ‘Exactly what did happen the night of your eighteenth birthday bash? You know, I never did find out why Angelo had disappeared, Tomaso looked like thunder and Mum was on the brink of hysterics over breakfast the next morning...’

Every scrap of natural colour had drained from her complexion. ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ she said tightly.

Her stomach was churning sickly. She broke out in a cold sweat. If she lived to be a hundred, she would still relive that evening in her nightmares. Angelo had humiliated her. Angelo had destroyed her. At a most sensitive age, he had instilled in her an aversion to sexual intimacy that she had still to overcome. The Iceberg was dead from the neck down, she reflected with raw shame and bitterness. She couldn’t bear a man to come too close. Her skin crawled when men got seductive and expectant. It made her feel soiled, cheap. Angelo had done that to her...with his scorn and revulsion.

‘You’re a promiscuous little tramp. It doesn’t matter how much money my father spends on you...you will never climb out of the gutter!’

Kelda swallowed back nausea with difficulty. She was lost in the past, savaged by an indictment that had merely heightened the intense vulnerability she concealed from the world.

‘Angelo seems to be encouraging Mum and Tomaso,’ Tim remarked. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t stick a spoke in his wheels.’

‘You’ve seen him, haven’t you?’ Kelda demanded.

Tim didn’t meet her eyes. ‘He called into the office one day last week.’ He cleared his throat awkwardly. ‘Actually, he’s offered to fix me up with a better job...’

‘I can see I’m on my own,’ Kelda breathed flatly.

Tim searched her vibrantly beautiful face anxiously. ‘He’s a vicious bastard when he’s crossed, Kelda. Stay out of it. Mum’s a big girl now. Let her make her own mistakes. And if Angelo’s prepared to bury the hatchet—’

‘I’ll lift it out of the ground and bury it in his back,’ Kelda slotted in with grim emphasis. ‘I have no intention of interfering between Mum and Tomaso but neither have I any intention of being roped in to play happy families. I’m not eighteen any more. I have a life of my own.’

Tim groaned. ‘You’re not half as tough as you like to act. If you annoy him, Angelo won’t just rock your boat, Kelda. He’ll blow you out of the water.’

Her hand shook slightly as she raised her glass. Tim’s imagery sent a chill snaking down her backbone.

‘Any recovery on the career front?’ Tim prompted abruptly.

She pulled a face. ‘I’m trying to sell my apartment.’