Italian Surgeon to the Stars (6 page)

‘At least it’s not for long,’ Alessandro said as he and I watched the two girls interact. ‘I hope to have the house ready in a month, tops.’

Was it the dream house we had talked about while lying in bed in Paris on those wonderful mornings when I’d basked in the glow of his lovemaking? Who would he share it with now? A knife stabbed me under the ribs. Why couldn’t I move on? So what if he found someone to have babies with? I. Did. Not. Care.

‘How long do you think you’ll have Claudia?’ I asked.

‘It depends on how my sister responds to treatment.’ He turned and looked at me again. ‘I would appreciate it if you’d call me immediately if you have any concerns about my niece.’ He handed me a business card with his contact details on it. ‘You can call me any time. Day or night.’

I pocketed the card as Jennifer came over with Claudia and Phoebe, who were holding hands.

‘Ready to meet the rest of your classmates?’ I said with a bright, enthusiastic smile.

Claudia gave a tiny nod without speaking, her big soulful eyes making that knife under my ribs jab a little harder.

***

‘How’s your new pupil settling in?’ asked Lucy Gatton, the Reception/Kindergarten class teacher, when I came into the staffroom at lunchtime.

I gave Lucy a brief rundown on what I’d observed about Claudia and her speech impediment, and the way she compensated for it by allowing others to speak for her.

‘She’s a little on the shy side, but she seems to be fitting in without too much trouble,’ I said. ‘Phoebe Milton’s taken her under her wing.’

I could have kissed Phoebe for how brilliantly she was looking after Alessandro’s niece. Phoebe’s parents were missionaries in Sierra Leone. She had been sent to England with her brother to be educated after an Ebola virus outbreak a few months ago. I was amazed at how easily she had adapted to boarding school. It was as if she was on her own little mission—taking care of the natives, so to speak. She was a born nurturer
who was always on the watch for anyone who needed a bit of love and care.

She reminded me of Bertie at that age—always eager to please and friendly to a fault—and I was hopeful that Claudia and Phoebe would become best buddies once Claudia developed some confidence. It was only the first day and the poor little munchkin had been through a lot just recently.

It’s hard as a teacher not to become emotionally involved.
Too
emotionally involved, I mean. The kids feel like
my
kids. I want to protect them like a mother hen. I hate seeing them struggle. I feel actual physical pain when I see them cry or hurt themselves or get hurt by others. I could tell Claudia was going to be one of those kids I would be lying awake at night worrying about. She had a haunted look in those big brown eyes—as if she’d seen things no child of her age should ever have seen.

‘Was that her father who brought her to school?’ Lucy asked.

‘No, her uncle.’

I could feel the probe of Lucy’s gaze as I set about making myself a cup of tea. I had tried to keep my expression suitably composed when dealing with Alessandro earlier,
but anyone who knew anything about body language would have known I wasn’t entirely at ease with him. Half the time my body had been giving off signals I had absolutely no control over.

How was I going to maintain a professional standing when he was around? How much would he
be
around? Although Claudia was boarding at Emily Sudgrove it was solely for practical reasons. Would he come and visit her regularly? How was I going to avoid him? At the very least there would be the parent-teacher interviews, which we do twice a term—more frequently if there’s a problem.

And the more I saw of little Claudia the more I realised there
was
a problem…

‘He looks kind of familiar…’ Lucy tapped her chin for a moment. ‘Of
course
! He’s that celebrity doctor, isn’t he? I didn’t recognise him, dressed in civvies. I saw a couple of press interviews but he was wearing scrubs. He’s gorgeous looking, isn’t he?’

‘Is he?’ I reached for a tea bag from the box on the shelf. ‘I hadn’t noticed.’

Lucy gave a snorting laugh. ‘Pull the other one, Jem. Tell you what—I wish one of
my
uncles looked like him. Is he single?’

‘Apparently.’ I spent an inordinate amount of time jiggling the tea bag in my cup.

‘So how come he’s looking after his niece?’ Lucy asked.

‘Her mother’s ill.’

‘Cancer?’

‘He didn’t say, and I didn’t like to pry,’ I said. ‘I got the feeling it was painful for him to discuss.’

‘Poor little kid.’ Lucy sighed. ‘But is boarding school the right place for her?’

‘Al—Dr Lucioni is renovating his house,’ I said, just catching myself from saying his Christian name in time. ‘Claudia will live with him once it’s completed, or until her mother is out of hospital—whichever happens first.’

‘But if the kid’s mother’s in hospital and she’s boarding he won’t be able to take her to see her.’

I’d been thinking the very same thing. Years ago no one took children to visit their loved ones in hospital in the belief that it would terrify them or make them too upset. It was the same with funerals. Children were kept away in an effort to shield them. But children needed to process the same emotions that adults felt, with plenty of support at hand.

‘I know,’ I said to Lucy. ‘I guess he thinks it’s for the best. Perhaps the mother’s on a ventilator or something. That would be pretty distressing to see as a little kid.’

‘Maybe she’s in a psych ward?’ Lucy said.

A ghostly hand touched the back of my neck with icy fingers. Was that why Alessandro was keeping his little niece away? Was Claudia’s mother mentally unstable?

Mental illness is possibly the most difficult of all conditions for a child to understand. The impact of medication can often make things worse before it makes things better. It’s harrowing for everyone involved, let alone a small child who looks to their parent for safety and security.

I frowned into my cup and saw the tea-leaves had spilled out of the tea bag from all the jiggling. They’d made a weird swirly pattern on the bottom of my cup.

I couldn’t help wondering what my mother would make of it.

***

I stayed late at school—there was nothing unusual in that—to check that Claudia was settling in to the boarding house. I found her and Phoebe sitting on the floor of their bedroom
with a bunch of Barbies in various states of dress and undress.

I didn’t interrupt them for long. As usual Phoebe was doing all the talking, but Claudia was handing her articles of clothing and tiny high-heeled shoes, and seemed to be enjoying herself. I suspected Phoebe’s friendly chatter relaxed Claudia as it took the pressure off her to speak. After all, there are speakers and there are listeners. Some people are much more comfortable doing all the talking. Others like to take time to listen and reflect. I suspected that even without her speech impediment Claudia would still be a reserved and reflective child.

On the way out I had a chat with Jennifer to make sure everything was going fine, and was reassured to hear Claudia had eaten a healthy after-school snack and had even smiled a couple of times at something Phoebe had said. I wondered if the boarding house was providing the sort of security and routine Claudia might have been missing in her life with her mother. I couldn’t let it go. I
had
to find out what was wrong with her mother.

But the only way I could do that was to meet with Alessandro. In private.

I found his address on the school’s computer
system. I had his number on the business card he’d given me, but I didn’t want to give him a heads-up about me coming to visit. I wanted simply to show up. I know it was cynical of me, but I wanted to cold-call him to see if he really
was
renovating—not trying to keep some sexy little model-type a secret while his little niece languished at boarding school.

I know. I’m a hard case. But it’s his fault.

I drove about twenty minutes out of Bath into the countryside that makes England so famous. Verdant rolling fields, birds twittering in the hedgerows and late-afternoon sunlight casting everything in a golden hue that looked as picturesque as a postcard.

I turned up a tree-lined driveway that had a creamy-coloured Georgian mansion at the end of it. The trees’ overarching limbs with their fresh spring growth created a lime-green canopy overhead. It was like driving through a long, leafy tunnel.

The mansion, on closer inspection, was indeed in the throes of being renovated. Tradesmen’s tools such as ladders and sawhorses and scaffolding surrounded the building, and stonemasons had clearly been doing their thing. However, they weren’t currently doing
their thing as it was way past knock-off time. The place looked deserted.

I parked the car and got out, waiting for a sign of anyone responding to my arrival. Not that my car gave anything like the roar Alessandro’s had done outside school that morning. My car is more of the coughing and spluttering type, although today was a good day. So far.

I stood there for five minutes… Well, it was probably closer to thirty seconds, but it felt like five years. In case you haven’t already guessed by now, I’m not the most patient person on the planet.

I walked across the gravel courtyard to the front door, my footsteps sounding like I was walking over bubble wrap in spiky heels. There was a brass doorbell on the left-hand side of the door, which I noted needed a good polish. It made no sound at all that I could tell from where I was standing. I gave the door a rap with my knuckles but—unlike in all those period dramas my sister loves watching—no uniformed butler answered my summons.

I looked at the door for a moment before reaching out and turning the doorknob. The door opened with a ghostly creak that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
The sensible, law-abiding side of my brain was asking,
What the hell are you doing trespassing on private property?
But the other side was saying,
Go on. Have a good old snoop. You know you want to.

I stepped over the threshold and peered around in the failing light. Thousands of dust motes were floating in the air, as if my entry had disturbed them from a century-long slumber. I stepped further inside, and the floorboards announced my presence with a screech of protest. It gave me such a fright that I let go of the doorknob and a tiny gust of wind—it might even have been a ghost, but don’t tell my mother I said that—closed the door behind me with a snap that sounded as loud as a rifle shot.

My heart was suddenly not where it was supposed to be. It had leapt from my chest to my throat and was fluttering there like a pigeon stuck in a pipe. I gave myself a good old talking-to and reached for the doorknob. It wouldn’t budge. I rattled it a couple of times. I turned it this way and that. I tugged on it. Then I put both hands on it and rattled it some more.

The rattles echoed throughout the foyer like chains in a dungeon. I could feel perspiration
breaking out between my shoulder blades even though the temperature inside the house was cool. Ghost cool, if you were the type to believe in all that nonsense—which, of course, I wasn’t. I knew for sure that my parents’ seances were staged. I’d seen my father’s finger pushing the glass across the board. I’d pushed the thing myself, to spell out ‘this sucks’ when my mother had pressured me to join in the last time I visited.

I pulled on the doorknob with one almighty tug and stumbled backwards as it came off in my hands. I regained my balance and stood staring down at the brass ball of the doorknob as if it were a hand grenade.

I tried to put it back where it belonged, but part of the mechanism had come away with the knob. My heart began its frantic flapping up in my throat again. I was trapped inside Alessandro Lucioni’s house and night was falling. How on earth was I going to get out? What if he found me skulking around in there? I would look like a complete nutcase. A stalker. A prowler. A first-class idiot.

The windows.
Of course!
I put the doorknob down on the dust-ridden surface of a hall table and went to the nearest windows, which were in a reception/drawing room off
the hall. I tried the catches but they looked like they had all been painted over. None of them would budge at all.

I went to the next room along but, while I was able to get one catch undone, the sash of the window must have been broken because it wouldn’t lift up. I let out a very rude word—and turned around to see a tall, silent figure framed in the doorway. This time my heart almost leapt out of my throat and bounced along the floor. Then I realised it was Alessandro, and not some ghostly spectre from the past.

But then, he
was
a spectre from the past.

‘You scared the freaking hell out of me!’ I said.

He cocked an eyebrow in a wry manner. ‘Same.’

Quite frankly, I was annoyed he wasn’t showing any of the fear or shock he’d alleged I’d caused him. My heart was still hammering so fast I could feel it in my fingertips, and my stomach was like a butter churn set on too fast a speed.

When I’m cornered I always go on the offensive. ‘What sort of place
is
this?’ I said. ‘It’s not safe for an adult, let alone a child. You should have hazard signs up, with skulls and
crossbones on them. How on earth are you going to have this house ready in a
month
? Have you got rocks in your head?’

He moved further into the room. It was a large room. A very large room. But when he entered it felt like we were in a dolls’ house. Or maybe even a matchbox. He came to stand in front of me. I resisted the urge to back away. There wasn’t anywhere to go other than through the window that had stubbornly refused to provide me with an escape route.

The closer he got the more my heart raced.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
It was not just pounding in my fingertips but between my legs as well. I could feel the memory of him pulsing through me, heating me inside out. My flesh was hungry, starved, just about gagging for his touch. I could feel its restiveness against the covering of my clothes, as if my body couldn’t wait to get naked and feel his wickedly clever hands gliding over every inch of it.