Coming Home

I lay for some time staring at the black-and-white-tiled bathroom floor, trying to make sense of what had happened while waiting for some strength to return to my limbs. Eventually I managed to sit up and I pulled the towel tightly round me.

Tara bustled in holding a first-aid box and kneeled next to me while she patted the cut on my temple dry and applied a fresh plaster. ‘You want to be careful of that for a few days,’ she advised. ‘That wound is quite deep. You shouldn’t have got it wet.’

I stared round the steamy bathroom. ‘Where did all the water go?’

She looked at me blankly. ‘I assume it went down the drain.’

‘There was so much of it,’ I mumbled. ‘The shower was full to the top.’

I could see her eyeing me dubiously. ‘The tap was already off when I heard you call out and came in to find you huddled on the floor of the shower. It’s lucky I know how to unlock the knob from outside the bathroom door—I’ve always worried that Jadie might lock herself in.’

‘You didn’t see all the water then?’ I asked hesitantly.

She shook her head. ‘I saw you hunched over in the shower tray and I pulled you out. I thought you’d slipped or fainted. Lucky you cried out when you went down or you could have been in there for ages.’

‘I’m sor—’

‘Don’t apologise,’ she interrupted, cutting me off. ‘It could have happened to anyone. Just take it easy, OK?’

I nodded and let her help me to my feet, supporting myself against the washbasin with my free hand.

‘I’m fine now, honestly.’

‘You shouldn’t go out tonight, you know. You look really washed out.’

I would have laughed at her unintentional joke if I’d had the strength. Instead I allowed her to help me to my room, where I sank gratefully down on the bed.

‘Is there anything else you need?’ She hesitated before turning to leave the room.

I shook my head. ‘I’ll be fine in a few minutes, thank you.’

As soon as she’d gone I reached round and pulled the quilt round me, trying to instil some warmth back into my damp, shivering body. What had happened in there? Had it all been a horrible hallucination brought on by the heat of the shower or was my head injury worse than I had feared? Closing my eyes, I realised that this was not the first time my imagination had run away with me; first there had been the feeling of euphoria I’d experienced when Vincent had carried me back here, then the bad dreams and now this…

I sat bolt upright on the bed as another thought occurred to me. Hadn’t I been trying to recapture that very feeling—the peaceful out-of-body sensation of floating in another place with Vincent when the water had suddenly turned so cold? Little daggers of fear shot through me; could my memory loss be part of something else, something sinister that I didn’t understand?

Sliding off the bed I dried myself vigorously, taking comfort from the roughness of the towel as I rubbed it hard over my skin. Soon my whole body was pink and glowing, and I put my doubts firmly to the back of my mind as I turned to the immediate matter of readying myself for an evening out with Vincent.

Chapter Ten (#ulink_5a8fa138-c666-52ad-a47a-9681f6931993)

For all her possessiveness, Tara was providing me with everything I needed to survive. She had laid out some clothes for me over the back of the chair, presumably selected from Vincent’s wife’s wardrobe. I slipped into what appeared to be some brand-new silk underwear, pulled on smart grey trousers and buttoned the blouse. Tara had brought me an eyeliner pencil and lipstick, and I applied both to my pale face, determined not to give in to the lingering feeling of despair the ordeal in the shower had left me with.

Tara had also put out a thick cardigan, which I picked up before squaring my shoulders and hurrying downstairs to where Vincent was waiting for me, looking resplendent in a claret-coloured striped shirt; a suede jacket thrown over his shoulder.

He looked at what appeared to be a pretty expensive gold watch and smiled at me. ‘Spot on time. I like a lady who can be punctual.’

I ventured a glance at Tara, who avoided my gaze as Vincent took my arm and guided me towards the front door.

‘I couldn’t have been ready without Tara’s help.’ I turned to look her in the eye. ‘You’ve been very kind.’

Tara held my gaze for several seconds. I could see her fighting an inner struggle between what I assumed was jealousy and good manners before saying a rather begrudging, ‘You’re welcome.’

I flashed her a quick smile while Vincent looked warily from her to me. He had probably been able to sense the undercurrent of hostility in the air between us earlier and was wondering what it was all about. I sighed at the ineptitude of this man to see what was plainly before his eyes—that his housekeeper was secretly in love with him.

Pulling on the chunky cardigan, I buttoned it up to my neck as Vincent opened the front door.

‘You are sure you’re up to this?’ he asked as we stood in the doorway. ‘You still look a bit peaky.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I assured him as he turned to where Tara was hovering behind us.

‘We shouldn’t be too late,’ he said.

‘I’ll be waiting,’ Tara replied drily as we stepped out into the freezing night.

I clung tightly to Vincent’s arm as we negotiated a partially cleared path through the front gardens between Maria’s front door and his. It wasn’t far to go, which was just as well because I had on the boots I’d been found in, which weren’t much better here than they had been the previous day. Once or twice I nearly fell and Vincent had to grab me to stop me pitching headlong into the snow-covered bushes. Each time he touched me I half expected the pressure of his hands on my arms to send shivers down my spine, but the only shivering I was doing was from the biting cold.

As we stood in the covered porch, Vincent asked, ‘Do you want to make up a name for yourself before we go in? We’re going to have to call you something.’

Resting my hand against the wall, I chewed my lip. ‘I don’t know…’ We heard footsteps coming to the door. ‘I can’t think of anything.’

Maria opened the door, dressed in a gypsy-style skirt with a flowing long-sleeved top in a deep burgundy red. Her black hair hung loose and she had a sparkle to her eyes and flush to her cheeks that made me wonder if she’d been drinking. With her long black hair and slightly haughty demeanour she reminded me of Kate from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew.

‘Vincenzo!’ she exclaimed as though she had been caught totally off guard by our arrival. She looked me up and down much as she had done earlier and pasted a thin smile on her sensuous lips. ‘And, er…?’

‘Kate,’ I said hurriedly, still thinking of Shakespeare. ‘It’s Kate.’

‘Come on inside. Dinner is almost ready.’ She took Vincent’s coat and my cardigan. ‘Please come through to the dining room.’

We followed her through a mirror image of the house next door, past an imitation of the open staircase towards the dining room, which was decked out with candles and glittering silverware. There was a large wooden salad bowl on the table and a basket full of bread. I noticed that the table was set for four.

‘What would you like to drink?’ she asked, indicating several bottles of wine standing on the sideboard next to a cheese board groaning with assorted cheeses and decorated with small bunches of grapes. ‘The white is good, but I think the red is better; perhaps both, eh?’

She disappeared off to the kitchen and Vincent poured three glasses of the red while we stood awkwardly. I wandered to the window, pulled back a corner of the curtain and looked out through the leaded-light windows into the darkness beyond. When Maria came back she was bearing a large ovenproof dish, which she placed in the centre of the table. It smelled delicious.

‘Michael! Our guests are here and we are ready to eat!’ Maria called as she discarded the oven gloves and slid into the seat at the top of the table. She waved for Vincent and me to sit so I pulled out one of the heavy chairs and waited politely, wondering what her son would be like.

The door opened and a dark-haired boy of about Maria’s height walked in. He was pleasant-looking, with big almond-shaped eyes set in an oval face that had yet to require the attention of a razor. I guessed he was around thirteen but he was going to be handsome one day, of that I had no doubt.

‘Good evening,’ Vincent said magnanimously.

‘Hello,’ Michael managed, though the flush that suffused his cheeks told me that he would rather not be helping to entertain his mother’s guests.

‘Michael, hand me the plates,’ Maria said. ‘I hope you are all hungry! Here, Vincenzo.’ She handed him a plate piled with food. ‘We must feed you up while that skinny housekeeper of yours is not looking.’ She passed me a plate of pasta with meatballs. ‘How do you come to know Vincenzo, Kate?’

‘I got lost in the snowstorm,’ I told her. ‘Vincent very kindly gave me shelter in his home.’

‘Ah, but your family must be so worried about you! And the phone lines are down. Have you managed to let anyone know where you are?’

I picked up my fork and toyed with the food, my appetite suddenly gone. ‘I’m not sure that I even have a family,’ I admitted.