English Rose for the Sicilian Doc. Annie Claydon

about as far as Matteo was prepared to go.

      Her son was a patient at the hospital where he was a doctor. That might change, but it would make no difference. Matteo had loved a woman with children once before. There was no changing the damage he’d caused then and no woman, however beautiful, could change the way he felt about it now. If he wanted to be able to sleep at night, he wouldn’t lay one finger on Rose’s perfect, porcelain skin.

      * * *

      Dr Garfagnini was a small, middle-aged man with a kind face. He appeared in the entrance to the reception area, beckoning to Matteo, and Rose caught William’s hand, her heart beating a little faster. Maybe this was some long-standing issue that had somehow escaped her notice. That verdict on her failings as a mother would be a lot easier to take coming from the older man’s lips, and Rose almost wished she didn’t need Matteo to translate.

      Introductions were made and they were seated in easy chairs set around a large, low table in Dr Garfagnini’s bright, airy consulting room. William was given crayons and paper, and Dr Garfagnini pushed an upholstered stool up next to the table for him. Coffee was brought in, and Matteo waved it away, prompting a laugh and a joking observation from Dr Garfagnini.

      ‘He says I’m a coffee snob. That takes some dedication on this island.’ Matteo seemed to be trying to put her at ease. ‘Now, I’m going to fill Dr Garfagnini in on what you’ve already said to me, and then I’m sure he’ll have some questions...’

      There were many questions, and at times it seemed that Matteo’s translations of her answers were a little longer than the original. Rose battled against the rising anxiety, and finally she snapped.

      ‘Please. Will you tell me what you just said to him? I need to know what’s going on.’

      ‘Of course. I’m sorry. I was mentioning what happened in the waiting room.’

      ‘What did happen in the waiting room?’ Rose pressed her lips together, aware that William had looked up from the blue and brown smudges that he was drawing. It would be a little more to the point if Matteo directed his colleague’s attention to those.

      ‘We played with cars.’ William provided the answer, and Matteo nodded, grinning broadly at him. His relaxed attitude seemed to reassure William that all was well, and he went back to his drawing.

      Matteo turned to Rose. ‘Dr Garfagnini would like to test him for colour-blindness.’

      ‘Colour-blindness?’ How could she not have noticed something like that? Rose reached for her coffee and realised she’d already finished it. The empty cup rattled in the saucer as she put it back onto the table. The game had been a test after all.

      ‘It’s not going to distress him in any way.’ Matteo’s brown eyes were melting with concern.

      ‘No. I’m sorry, please, go ahead.’ She wanted to grab William and hug him. Tell him she was sorry that she hadn’t thought of this. That she’d allowed him to be confused by the world around him, without it even occurring to her that he might not see it as she did.

      She watched numbly as Dr Garfagnini produced a set of Ishihara plates. These were obviously made for children, the blotches forming squares, triangles and circles, rather than numbers. Matteo explained what he wanted William to do, making it all seem like a game to him. Rose watched in horror as her son failed to pick out the shapes in almost a third of the pictures.

      Then there were more games, all centred around colour. Matteo was pretending to make mistakes, some of which William gleefully corrected, and others that he didn’t notice. Then an examination of William’s eyes, and finally Dr Garfagnini nodded and spoke to Matteo in Italian.

      ‘What did he say?’ Rose tried to keep the tremor from her voice, for William’s sake.

      ‘In his opinion, your son is colour-blind. It’s an inherited condition, and there’s no cure or medication for it. It’s just the way he perceives the world...’ Matteo broke off as a tear rolled down Rose’s cheek and she swiped it away. Why couldn’t he just have pretended he hadn’t noticed?

      ‘Your son is healthy.’ His dark eyes searched her face, as if looking for some clue as to the source of the tear.

      ‘Yes. Thank you.’ She turned to Dr Garfagnini, ‘Grazie.’

      She had to pull herself together. It was unforgivable to react like this in front of William and the doctors who had been so kind. She could do the guilt and the soul-searching later, in private. Rose straightened her shoulders, blinking back any further tears that might be thinking about betraying her.

      An exchange in Italian, and Matteo nodded, turning to Rose. ‘Dr Garfagnini has an evening appointment and needs to leave soon, but he’s suggested that I might be able to give you some practical insights, if you have some time to stay and talk.’

      ‘But...what kind of doctor are you?’ Maybe Matteo’s speciality had something to do with her son’s condition.

      Matteo gave her that relaxed, seductive smile that seemed to burn through everything else. ‘I’m an interventional radiologist. And red-green colour-blind, like your son.’

       CHAPTER TWO

      MATTEO KNEW THAT any parent, given the news that their child wasn’t perfect, was likely to react. But most people’s reaction to his own colour-blindness was to ask how he managed to match his clothes in the morning and leave it at that. There was more to it, but Rose couldn’t have looked any more horrified if he’d told her that the end of the world was expected some time during the next ten minutes.

      She’d regained her composure quickly, though, thanking both him and Dr Garfagnini and giving them both a polite smile. But that unguarded moment had piqued Matteo’s curiosity. Dr Garfagnini had seen it too, and it had prompted him to ask Matteo to talk to her now.

      ‘You’ll have to forgive me.’ She was strolling next to him through the hospital and down to his office. ‘I don’t exactly know what an interventional radiologist does.’

      ‘It’s all about image-guided diagnosis and treatment. It’s not as invasive as conventional surgery, and we use radiological techniques to target our treatments very precisely.’

      ‘Sounds fascinating.’ She was obviously weighing up the idea in her head, and Matteo smiled. Most people thought it sounded a bit dry. ‘I hope you don’t mind my asking, but how does your colour blindness affect what you do? It’s not all black-and-white images, is it?’

      ‘No. Doppler imaging involves colour, to indicate tissue velocities. But it’s colour coding, and so switching the colours to the parts of the spectrum that I can see is always an option.’

      ‘Yes, I see. I suppose that most problems have a solution.’

      That was exactly what he wanted her to understand. That William’s colour blindness was a set of solutions and not a set of problems.

      ‘Did you know that the man who pioneered diagnostic radiology was colour-blind?’

      ‘No, I didn’t. Did you hear that, William?’ She looked down at her son, who was busy engaging with the people who passed them in the corridor, pulling at her hand as he turned this way and that, taking in his new surroundings.

      ‘I don’t think he’s much interested in the history of diagnostic radiology.’ Matteo chuckled. He hadn’t been either when he’d been William’s age.

      ‘Well, he could be if he wanted to, later on.’ Rose seemed as open to new possibilities as her son, and it made her initial reaction to Dr Garfagnini’s diagnosis all the more puzzling.

      He led her through the outer office, stopping to ask his secretary why she hadn’t gone home yet, and ushered Rose into his own office. She put her bag down on the floor, sitting down in the chair that he pulled up for her, and William reached into her bag.

      ‘William!