Forgive Me (59 page)

She was alone. All the other guests at The
Royal Hotel had retreated up the steps to the shade of the gardens. She could hear their
laughter, the clink of glasses and the soft murmur of the same tape of Italian songs
she’d heard almost continually for the whole time she’d been staying
here.

The ferry to Capri was just leaving the
harbour. As the swell from the boat reached the rocks beneath her, she saw the fish.
About ten of them, four or five inches long – sardines perhaps, because there was a
flash of silver as the waves tossed them from one rock pool to another. They appeared to
be trying to get back into the open sea. But each time they almost made it, another wave
came and they were tossed back.

She watched them for some time, almost
mesmerized by the futility of their exertions, and it suddenly occurred to her that she
had a great deal in common with them. In the last eighteen months she’d been
tossed around by outside forces, reeling from one disaster to another, and she had lost
all sense of direction.

Just like the sardines in the rock pools
with their desire to
reach the open sea, she’d left England
almost four months ago in the belief that if she just removed herself from her past
life, she’d save her sanity and find the ability to be happy again.

She had no fears for her sanity any more.
She’d had times in Paris when she’d been terrified and felt totally
isolated. She missed Phil so badly, it was like an open wound – just a glimpse of a man
who looked a bit like him made her heart race. Yet however scared she was at first in
Paris, and however much she wanted to stay in her room in the pension in St Germain and
hide away, she made herself leave there each morning. First, she would have a coffee and
a pastry at a sidewalk cafe while she people-watched, then later she went off to explore
whichever area of Paris she’d decided on the night before. She found her way
around the Métro, walked for miles, visited all the well-known tourist attractions – and
most of the less well-known ones too – and went to parts of the city most people
avoided.

Loneliness, she had finally decided,
wasn’t the same as being alone. She did feel lonely sometimes – usually when she
saw something that made her laugh, and she wished Phil was there to laugh with her. She
felt lonely too eating on her own; food was something which was always better shared.
But mostly she found being alone almost a guilty pleasure, because she didn’t have
to consider anyone else’s feelings or tastes.

She had felt very sorry for herself when she
first left England, and the only way she could stop the self-pity was by reminding
herself how fortunate she was that she had money in the bank from the sale of the
studio. She still lived frugally, because she had never been a spendthrift, but it was a
safe feeling knowing she had that big cushion of money behind her.

Maybe it was Olive’s suggestion that she
write down her feelings, or Flora’s influence, which made her start a diary.
Certainly the irritation she’d felt at Flora’s lack of real information in
her diaries made her record not just what she did each day, what she saw, but also how
she felt.

Looking back at her diary almost a month
after she started, she noticed that on her tenth day in Paris she’d written that
the noise of the traffic didn’t seem so loud any more, that she didn’t mind
being jostled by crowds, and that sometimes she even wanted to talk to people. That was
the point when she began to feel better.

Writing had been her saviour, she was
convinced of that. It filled time, it both soothed and kept her mind sharp, and it
became a reason to explore further, just for the joy of writing about it. One day, while
scribbling away in a cafe, an English couple asked her if she was writing a book. They
said they’d seen her there before, always writing. Without even stopping to think,
she said she was. Knowing she was never going to see them again, she told them a
fictionalized story about herself, and it was the most liberating thing she’d ever
done. To invent a different past for herself meant she could be anyone – rid herself of
old scars, emotional baggage and a bad self-image.

It was only once she was in bed that night,
with the hum of traffic coming through the open windows on a warm breeze, that it
occurred to her that maybe the story she’d told that couple – that she’d
taken a sabbatical from her job in an advertising agency in order to write – could well
be turned into a book. She found herself excited by the idea of inventing a heroine who
was all the things she was not: someone beautiful and brave, who had amazing adventures
as she travelled from city to city.

From Paris she took a train, first to
Florence and then to
Rome. As she assimilated the turbulent histories
of both those ancient cities and found herself wowed by their magnificent works of art,
she wrote about what she saw and experienced. Paige, her heroine, did things Eva
wouldn’t dare: she had an affair with a snake-hipped, doe-eyed waiter who stole
her money, she accepted invitations to the homes of total strangers, and she drove a
Vespa around the narrow streets in tiny shorts and a cropped top. There really were
handsome waiters who made eyes at Eva, but her heart was still with Phil.

Sitting in pavement cafes or strolling past
expensive shops, she’d observed the elegance and self-assurance of Italians,
marvelling that the design of their clothes, shoes, lighting and furniture were all so
much more stylish than their English counterparts. She wrote that Paige was asked to
design an interior for a splendid old palazzo Eva had seen on the banks of the Arno near
the Ponte Vecchio, and she delighted in writing about the fabrics, the colours and the
beautiful antique furniture she would put into it. Paige let herself be seduced by the
owner of the palazzo – wild, steamy sex that made Eva feel even more wistful about
Phil.

However exciting Rome was, in July it became
too hot and crowded for even Paige to enjoy it. So Eva caught the train to Naples and
arrived here in Sorrento, on the Amalfi coast, to find that it was a different Italy,
one of natural beauty that man had no hand in.

The clear sapphire sea, the terrifying
hairpin bends along cliff roads with sheer drops to rocks hundreds of feet below, the
slower pace and the air, heavy with the scent of lemons, enchanted her. She had no fear
of walking about here after dark, although it was often more tempting to just sit on the
balcony of her room in The Royal Hotel to watch the sun set over the sea. The comfort,
friendliness and location of the
hotel were seductive too. She could
catch a train to see the wonders of Pompeii. The ferry went to Capri, Positano and
Amalfi, and the staff greeted her each morning like an old friend or a member of the
family. And they seemed glad she stayed on and on.

The warm sun, the profusion of flowers and
trees, and the writing of her story all worked more magic on her. When she looked in the
mirror she saw an attractive girl of twenty-two, small, curvy, with pretty blue eyes and
shapely legs – not the plump and plain girl she had once believed she was. So the blonde
streaks in her hair weren’t natural, but her suntan was; she looked good in her
turquoise bikini, and not a day passed without men smiling or whistling at her.

She wasn’t really aware that
she’d started to enjoy other people’s company. It crept up on her. First it
was Sadie from Essex, who sat next to her going across on the ferry to Capri. She was a
student, alone too, and they talked about the thriller Sadie had with her, one Eva had
also read, found on the hotel bookshelf. By the time they got to Capri it seemed natural
to explore the pretty little town together. When they arrived back in Sorrento harbour
in the early evening, they went to a bar and got drunk together, talking and laughing as
if they’d known each other for years. Eva told Sadie about how she had first lied
and said she was writing a book, and now it seemed she really was. They talked about the
plot and made up more and more ridiculous adventures for her heroine. It was such a fun
evening, but Sadie was going back to Naples to meet up with a couple of friends the next
day. When they parted, Eva was genuinely sad.

From then on there were many more people to
spend a day, an afternoon or an evening with. Each one had a story: betrayal, divorce,
sickness, trouble with parents, or a love affair that had ended badly. And this made her
realize she
wasn’t unique; everyone got a share of misery in
their lives. Eva found she had no need to tell anyone about herself. She listened and
sympathized and let them believe she was intrepid, independent and nothing had given her
a moment of heartache.

From almost the first day in Sorrento,
she’d thought this was the place she could stay for ever. She’d begun to
learn Italian, she’d asked about getting work and even buying property here.
She’d been convinced that there was no reason to go back to England.

Until she noticed those fish.

The fish were better off in the rock pools
than out in the sea. They could bask in the warmer water; they couldn’t be eaten
by bigger fish or be scooped up by fishermen. Yet they were striving to get back into
deeper water because, dangerous or not, they knew that’s where they belonged.

So where did she belong? Was it in England?
There was only really Ben, Patrick, Gregor and Olive there. Freya had no interest in
her, and she’d burned her bridges with Phil. The half a dozen postcards
she’d sent him had been intended to tell him she was thinking of him all the time,
but maybe he found them insulting – as if she was thumbing her nose at him. She thought
he must have got a new girlfriend by now. That stung – she didn’t want to picture
him with someone else – but after leaving the way she did, she couldn’t expect
anything else.

As for her brother and friends, they would
be perfectly content with only a letter or phone call from her once in a while, if she
was really happy and settled here. Ben and Patrick would come and visit her too. Maybe
even Olive would.

She
was
happy now. She woke every
morning feeling good about herself, and felt she’d dealt with all the hurt of the
past. Her sorrow at losing Flora and Sophie would never go
away
completely. And in some strange way she was glad she had that sore place inside her; it
was evidence of their importance to her.

But loving Phil was quite different from
loving Flora or Sophie. He was there in her heart and mind every day, a raw place that
would not heal. Each meal she ate, every beautiful view she saw, she wished she was
sharing it with him. At night in bed she pictured his face: those soft brown eyes, the
way his lips curled up at the corners like a smile even when he was serious. She heard
his laughter, whispered words of love, and she remembered how the lovemaking had been
before all this other stuff got in the way.

Lots of men had tried to chat her up – in
France, Rome, Florence and here – but she had no interest in any of them. Phil had been
special, and no one else would ever make her feel the way she did about him.

But she had blown it with him. She had to
accept that and just be grateful that he’d been there for her when she most needed
love. He’d also let her go without bitter words or nasty accusations. A man like
Phil only came along once in a lifetime.

Tears sprang up in her eyes at the thought
of what she’d thrown away. She might have got used to loss in her life: Flora and
Sophie, and all those precious things that were destroyed in the fire. She could accept
that now. But there would always be deep regret at losing Phil.

She moved away from the rail and walked
towards the ladder at the end of the deck to go for a swim. As she descended each rung
of the steel ladder and the cold water crept up her sun-baked skin, she gasped at the
exquisite torture. Her hands moved down the smooth steel of the rail till they met the
waterline, where the metal became covered in slimy green weed.

She let herself flop into the sea and then
swam away from the ladder, out to where a string of buoys prevented boats coming close
to shore. She turned on to her back and floated, enjoying the sensation of the cool
water caressing her hot scalp.

Above, wisps of cloud like candyfloss
drifted across the periwinkle-blue sky. And as always when she swam here, she looked
back at the land and marvelled at the hotels and houses built right on to the edge of
the cliffs. She wondered how the builders had the confidence to believe the cliffs would
hold them safe.

Perhaps that was the exact reason why she
needed to go back to England? To prove to herself that all the bad things in her past
life really were over, that nothing else was going to crumble beneath her, and more
importantly too that she was now capable of forging a career and a real life for
herself, that she wasn’t dependent on anyone but herself.

Eva turned over, took a deep breath and
dived down into the water, staying down and swimming fast until her lungs felt as if
they were about to burst.

As she surfaced, she heard someone shout.
Treading water, she wiped the water from her eyes and saw a man on the decking, waving.
She looked around, but there was no one else in the water, so she swam back to the
ladder to see what he wanted.

Climbing up, to her astonishment she saw
that the man was Patrick.

‘I can’t believe it!’ she
exclaimed breathlessly as she scrambled up the last few steps. ‘How did you know I
was here?’

‘Elementary, my dear Watson,’ he
said with a wide smile. ‘The last postcard you sent was a picture of this hotel. I
rang yesterday to check you were still here.’

‘I’m too wet to hug you,’
she said, but she took his hand in
both of hers. He looked handsome in
a white short-sleeved shirt and pale-blue slacks, still with his ponytail, but his face
and arms were brown and healthy-looking. ‘What a wonderful surprise.’