22 Britannia Road - Amanda Hodgkinson [131]
Felixstowe
‘I know Moira’s been here,’ Tony says when he arrives that night. He looks wary and unsure. Silvana means to be calm. She means to talk sensibly. She holds out a handful of Lucy’s clothes at him. The look on his face says everything she needs to know.
‘How could you!’ she yells, throwing them at him. ‘How could you lie to me?’
He picks up a blouse, folds it carefully, turns his brown eyes to her. ‘They are just clothes.’
‘No, they’re not. They are Lucy’s clothes.’
‘Silvana, don’t be like this. You know I love you, don’t you?’
‘Who?’ she demands. ‘Who? Me or Lucy? You lied, damn it! Who do you love? Me or a dead woman?’
She regrets saying it the moment it leaves her mouth. Tony stares at her, wringing his hands.
‘Can we go to bed?’ he asks. ‘I’m tired. Let’s talk tomorrow. Come to bed now. It’s late. Please, just come to bed and let me hold you.’
‘No.’
‘Love me. Come to me, please.’
‘Throw the clothes away,’ she says.
‘Throw them away?’
‘Burn them! Get rid of them. Get them out of the house.’
‘I can’t …’
‘You have to.’
She sits on the bed watching him move armfuls of dresses. He looks broken, as if he is carrying away the body of his dead wife wrapped in layers of silk and cotton and jersey. She pities him, but she cannot bring herself to tell him to stop. When the wardrobe is empty, he stands waiting for his next instruction, but she turns on her side, pulls the covers over her head and feigns sleeps.
She wakes early the next morning, her dress crumpled and creased. She opens her eyes and feels a cool sense of determination. She slides out of bed, slips her feet into her shoes and picks up the headscarf lying on the table. Lucy’s house. Peter’s house. Tony’s house. Anybody’s house but hers.
‘Silvana?’
Tony is sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, looking at her. His eyes are red rimmed and his face is sunken. An empty whisky bottle rolls on the floor at his feet.
‘Where are you going, Silvana?’
He has a rough blue shadow of stubble on his cheeks, and his clothes look as crumpled as hers. He obviously hasn’t slept at all.
She rubs her face. ‘For a walk. And you? When are you going to Devon?’
‘I don’t have to go …’
But he will go with his son and parents-in-law. He will go to Devon. Of course he will. He belongs with them. Not with her. He knows that. And he knows it is over already between them. The moment she told him she knew about the clothes she saw it in his face. Like a film coming to an end and the lights going up.
He looks at her pleadingly, his brown eyes watering, and she understands finally what that look means. The longing in his face, the desire she always thought was aimed at her. It is the longing of a man who desperately wants what he cannot have. She knows it herself. They are united in this at least: the overwhelming desire to find the dead in the living.
She wants to tell him she is no better than him. Didn’t she take a child in order to pretend her own son was still living? That’s what she did. The film is over for her too. Aurek is not her dead son. He is a boy who needs loving for who he is. And Silvana is not Lucy.
‘They want me to go tomorrow,’ he says heavily. ‘We’ll be away for two weeks. You’ll be here, won’t you, when I get back?’
‘I don’t know,’ she answers. ‘I’m going for a walk on the beach. Do you want to come?’
Tony shakes his head. ‘I have to make a delivery. Those cotton sheets. I’ve finally sold them. I’m taking them over to a hotel in Ipswich this morning. Say you’ll be here when I get back?’
She doesn’t answer. She can feel the distance between them now. Overnight, a space has grown between them.
‘We’ll talk more this afternoon,’ he says, and she hears him trying to recapture the confident tone that his voice usually contains. His hands shape the air. ‘I must get up. Get on with things. I’ll see