For the first time in her life, she had seen for herself the total indifference shown by the powerful towards the powerless; it shocked her.
‘That is just so – so dreadful. I can’t believe it. Please, please tell me it’s not true.’
‘Why so dreadful? It will be fun, we will all have a lovely time together.’
‘But—’
‘I’m sorry if you think badly of me. I thought you would be pleased—’
‘Mariella, how can I be pleased? Jeremy – here, in Milan! And not just here, but having dinner with us. You could have warned me at least.’
‘
Cara
, I am sorry. I really didn’t think it was such a big – big deal.’
‘Well, it is. I feel a bit like not coming …’
‘Eliza.’ Mariella’s voice dropped its expression of abject innocence and took on a tone of steely determination. ‘Eliza, of course you must come. It will seem very, very rude if you do not. Timothy Fordyce and his wife, Janey, it is they who are taking us to dinner. And do you really want to miss Callas? All Milan will be there – it is such a wonderful occasion—’
‘All Milan and a bloody Englishman.’ Eliza hesitated. There was clearly nothing she could say to change things. And what did it matter? Really? She was being ridiculously immature. All that was going to happen was she would see Jeremy again and it would be fun.
‘Sorry, Mariella,’ she said, ‘I’m being stupid. It all sounds lovely. But can we go shopping? I need some better shoes. And do you really think what I’ve got is grand enough?’
‘For Jeremy?’
‘No, of course not. For La Scala.’
‘Eliza, Le Smoking by Yves Saint Laurent is smart enough for anywhere. I wanted one for myself, but it does not suit my shape. You will look extremely chic. But yes, perhaps, some new very, very high heels. We will go this afternoon. We will leave Emmie behind, I think, with Anna-Maria.’
Alone in her palace of a room, unpacking Emmie’s things, she wondered why she was so horrified at the prospect of seeing Jeremy. It wasn’t as if she’d dumped him last week. Or even last month. And he hadn’t given everything up in his grief, and gone to live in a monastery. He was a hugely successful corporate figure: CEO of KPD New York. And still extremely rich.
Of course, it would never have worked if she had married him. There had never been any real fire in their relationship (she tried not to think of the problems the fire in her relationship with Matt had caused).
What was worrying her was how she might feel about Jeremy after all this time, whether there might in fact be more of a fire than she thought.
And however much she loved Matt – and she did, she did – the magic had inevitably faded. There had to be an easing of emotion, a blunting of desire, however strong the relationship might be; and you would hardly be human if you didn’t welcome, however briefly, the dance of a flirtation, the disturbance of an attraction, the flickering of intrigue.
Jeremy could clearly offer that: and that was unsettling. Not to mention scary. Very scary indeed.
‘No! No, I won’t. I want to come with you.’
‘Emmie – darling, I won’t be long. Anna-Maria will play with you, however you want, you know she will.’
‘I don’t want to play with Anna-Maria. I want to go shopping.’
‘Look, suppose I bring you a present back. It’s going to be such a dull afternoon, trailing round the shoe shops—’
‘I don’t want a present, I want to be with you. Why can’t I come? I’ll be really, really good.’
‘Emmie—’ Eliza stopped. There was no reasoning with Emmie when she was in this mood; and besides, she couldn’t afford to antagonise her at this stage in the trip; she needed her cooperation for three more days, culminating in the night at the Scala when she really would not be allowed to come.
‘Well, look. If we take you today, will you promise to be very, very good? And then maybe we can take you for hot chocolate and a pastry afterwards. But I don’t want any complaining, Emmie. Is that a deal?’
Emmie understood deals. She smiled at her mother, a sweet, gentle smile, the huge dark blue eyes innocently wide. ‘It’s a deal.’
Milan, getting ready for Christmas, was at its fairy-tale best; strung with lights, across the street and down the lamp posts, the shop windows rich and luscious, gold and silver settings for sparkling evening dresses, glittering rich-coloured jewels. Especially wonderful to Eliza’s eyes were the food stores, butchers’ displays of boar, deer, hare, hanging pheasants still in their fine feathers, fruit and vegetable stalls, stacked high, and the
pasticcerie
, their windows works of art, and on every corner, flower stalls, offering huge ready-dressed bouquets and great bowls and vases of roses, lilies, and lush thick greenery. For Milan Christmas was the winter solstice, the ancient Roman feast day; less sentimental than London with its endless Santa Clauses and galloping reindeer, more adult, more concerned with sensual pleasure.
Even the nativity scenes in windows or in front of churches, were works of art, beautifully carved, life-sized shepherds, wise men, Mary and Joseph and the baby all exquisitely presented.
Everyone was in furs, leopard, sables and mink, with huge fox-fur collars, and even mink collars on the cashmere and camel coats of the men.
And woven into this dazzling throng were the gypsies, hundreds of them, raggedy and dirty with their sleeping babies – ‘they are drugged,’ Mariella said disdainfully – thrusting sprigs of heather, muttering curses. Some sat on pavements and in doorways; the Milanese stepped round or over them, never breaking off from their conversations for a moment, or handing over any money.
Emmie skipped along wide-eyed between Mariella and her mother, the faithful Anna-Maria trailing along behind.
‘Can I have some new shoes?’ asked Emmie. ‘I want black patent ones, with square ends. Like Katy’s.’
‘Who is Katy?’ asked Mariella. ‘I think she has good taste, square ends are very, very fashionable just now.’
‘She’s my best friend. At the moment.’
‘Do you often change your best friends?’
‘Yes. Lots of times.’
‘Good girl. I also.’
‘Is Mummy your best friend at the moment?’
‘But of course. And very, very often. Whenever I see her. She is a very good best friend, your mother.’
‘Mine too. At the moment,’ said Emmie.
They passed the dazzling windows of Rinascente: Emmie’s eyes glowed.
‘Can we go in there?’
‘No, we’re going to buy my shoes,’ said Eliza.
‘Please!’
‘Emmie,’ said Eliza warningly.
‘But it’s fun in there.’
Mariella spoke to Anna-Maria who nodded and grasped Emmie’s hand.
‘Emmie,
carina
, you go with Anna-Maria, she will take you round the store. We will meet you in one hour in Cova and you shall have a
millefoglie
. You will like that very much.’
‘But I want you to come—’
Mariella’s eyes became nail-hard and Anna-Maria pulled at Emmie’s hand. Eliza had seen the look.
‘Emmie! Remember the deal.’
‘OK.’
An hour and several dizzyingly high-heeled shoes later, they walked, swinging the bags, and giggling, to Cova.
‘Now. Where are they? Not here yet, I think.’
‘No,’ Eliza felt a slight heave of anxiety.
‘We will order the
cioccolata
and the
millefoglie
,’ said Mariella, sinking down at a table, ‘and they will be here very soon. Now, let me look at the last pair of shoes, the ones with the diamond straps, I think they are the ones – ah, here is Anna-Maria now.’
Anna-Maria, yes: a white-faced, wild-eyed Anna-Maria. Alone. No Emmie.
She rushed up to Mariella, spoke through almost hysterical sobs. The slight heave in Eliza’s stomach became a major turbulence. Mariella turned to her. She spoke carefully and slowly.
‘It seems Anna-Maria cannot – cannot find Emmie. She said she was there one minute and gone the next. In a very short time.’
Gone. A five year old, in the middle of a foreign city. Where she didn’t speak the language. A city teeming with people, where a child could be – could be—
‘God,’ she said, and again, ‘God.’ She thought she might be sick. Don’t panic, Eliza, she can’t be far away, someone will be taking care of her, Italians love children, little girls don’t get lost in the middle of the afternoon in broad – only it wasn’t broad daylight, it was dusk, almost dark.
‘Ask her where she last saw her,’ she said, trying to keep her voice calm.
More terrifying, incomprehensible Italian. Eliza swallowed.
‘It was in Rinascente. Anna-Maria just turn her front for a moment and Emmie was gone.’
They went back to Rinascente, all of them. To the children’s clothes department, where Anna-Maria had taken her, Eliza sobbing, and terrified. The wilful, manipulative Emmie had been entirely replaced in her head by a small, frightened child in danger. She kept thinking of the gypsies, with their angry curses: suppose they had taken Emmie, she had been fascinated by them, she would have gone …
‘Was here,’ Anna-Maria said, indicating a line of smocked, embroidered dresses. ‘I look away for one minute – and gone.’
‘You should have held her hand,’ said Eliza, ‘you should have kept holding her hand.’ Her panic had risen from her stomach into her throat.
‘She would not. She pull away. All the time.’
She mustn’t get angry with Anna-Maria. She mustn’t. It wouldn’t help.
Mariella, who had vanished, returned, looking smug. Maybe she’d found her, Eliza thought. Maybe she had some news.
‘That is done. The announcement – any moment. They say they will find her in no time, they always do. They say go to toy department.’
They went to the toy department; it was thronged with overdressed children and fur-coated mammas and
nonnas
, laughing, shouting in Italian. She began to feel hysterical. Why couldn’t they speak English, for God’s sake? If Emmie asked for help, no one would understand her. She’d be frightened, lost, crying – anyone could take her …
Eliza was sobbing now; Mariella took her by the shoulders and shook her.
‘Eliza! Be calm. We will not find Emmie this way. She is a clever child. We must think, think properly. What did she want this afternoon?’
‘Just – just come with us. And get – get—’
‘Oh, yes. The shoes. There she might be, I think. And they will have heard the message. Come,
cara
, courage.’
She held out her hand; Eliza was now sobbing uncontrollably. The fur-coated women looked at her with a mixture of disdain and sympathy. As long as she lived, Eliza thought, she would never again let Emmie out of her sight. And never, ever buy a fur coat. How she hated fur coats. If she never found Emmie, she would have to kill herself; she would climb up to the top of the Duomo, and throw herself off it, it would be the only thing she could possibly do …
‘Here. Here we are. Bambini. And – there now. What did I say? There she is, your clever little daughter. A fashion editor-to-be.’
And there indeed she was, a security guard at her side, sitting and smiling, not in the least upset, on a tall chair, rather like a throne, surrounded with patent leather shoes of every shape and colour. An amused shop assistant, clearly expecting that any moment a fur-coated someone would come and claim her, was helping her to try them on.
‘Emmie,’ shouted Eliza, across the room, ‘oh, Emmie, Emmie, I’ve been looking for you everywhere, where have you been, oh my darling, darling—’
Emmie heard her name, turned round, proffering two small feet, one in black patent, one in red.
‘Which do you think?’ she said.
Later, much later, when they were safely home, with both pairs of shoes, the red and the black, bought by Mariella against Eliza’s express instructions – ‘She deserves them,
cara
, she is so clever, finding them, you should be proud’ – Emmie was put to bed early as a punishment, told there would be no story that night, no more outings to Milan, and no Christmas presents for her on Christmas day.
‘What do you think Daddy will say, when he hears what you did, that you ran away from Anna-Maria like that?’ asked Eliza.
‘I don’t know,’ said Emmie, her voice implying very clearly that she didn’t care; but later when Eliza, softening, read her a story after all and tucked her up, she said, ‘Perhaps Daddy will be cross with you instead. For not staying with me.’
And she smiled very sweetly at her mother, put her thumb in her mouth and turned away from her.
The next day was beautiful. Eliza spent it with Emmie, roaming the grounds of the villa, playing hide and seek, eating a rather chilly picnic by the lake, as Emmie wanted (and then warming up in the house afterwards with hot chocolate, brought them by a remorseful and forgiving Anna-Maria), helping Emmie do a picture in crayons of the back of the house with the miniature maze, to show Matt, and finally watching the sun go down on the mountains.