Modern Romance July 2015 Books 5-8. Louise Fuller

with the wisdom the years had afforded and after so many fleeting relationships that never came close to what he had found with Sophie, he knew that what had been born that day had been a fledgling love. It had to have been for there had been nothing close to the same since. Not just the sex, but the conversation, the sharing, peering into the future with one another and picturing themselves there—not clearly, they’d had but a few hours together, of course, but there had been the chance of a future and it had been stolen from them that same day.

      He opened up his bedside drawer, expecting nothing, an old notebook perhaps or a school report. He used to hide them from his father—they had never been good enough. What he found, though, made him sit on the bed with his head in his hands.

      Her earring—just a thin gold loop with a small diamond where the clasp met, but it was the only tangible thing he had from that day and he examined it carefully as memories rushed in. He remembered her standing at the door and how that tiny stone and the sparkle it had made had brought attention not to the earring but to her eyes.

      She should have been here today, standing beside him. If she cared at all she’d have made the effort, wouldn’t she?

      ‘Did you ever look her up?’ Angela asked a little later as they drank coffee.

      ‘Who?’ Luka attempted.

      ‘The woman you were promised to for half of your life,’ Angela said. ‘The woman who walked out of this house dressed only in your shirt as the whole town looked on. The woman you shamed in court. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you her name.’

      ‘I had no choice to say what I did in court.’

      ‘I know that.’

      ‘Sophie didn’t, though.’

      ‘She was young,’ Angela said, and Luka nodded.

      ‘She was more upset about what I said to my father about her being a peasant...’ Luka smiled as he rolled his eyes. ‘And so, to make things worse, I went and said it again on the beach, the night of my release...’

      ‘To Sophie!’ Angela exclaimed, but then smiled. ‘She is so like her mother. Rosa could skin you alive with her eyes... I remember the day she turned up here, shouting at Malvolio to leave her family alone...’ Her voice trailed off. Even if he was dead, some things still weren’t discussed, but Luka nodded.

      He could remember that day just a little. Rosa had knocked on the door and had stood shouting down the hallway.

      He’d forgotten that, Luka thought. He would have been eight or nine...

      ‘You were younger then too when you said those things and you were also just out of prison.’ Angela broke into his thoughts. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t the time for common sense.’

      Again, he nodded.

      ‘So, did you ever look her up?’

      ‘I sat in a car outside Paulo’s jail day in day out for a month a couple of years ago,’ Luka admitted. ‘Then I found out that he was in hospital and not even there.’

      ‘You never visited him?’

      ‘I couldn’t face him,’ Luka admitted. ‘He took the fall for my father. When I found out that he had been sentenced to forty-three years...’ Luka gave a tight shrug. ‘The wrong man was put behind bars.’

      ‘Paulo wasn’t entirely innocent either.’

      ‘I know that. I don’t know what my father’s hold over him was but surely he could have said no at some point or just left.’ Luka gave a tight shrug, weary from thinking about it. ‘He didn’t deserve forty-three years, though, and for my father to walk free.’

      ‘You never saw Sophie after she left for Rome?’

      ‘Never,’ Luka said. ‘It is like she disappeared...’

      ‘I am sure she still visits her father.’

      Luka nodded. ‘Maybe I should go and visit him.’

      He was older now—he could face Paulo...

      Perhaps he could visit him and ask after his daughter.

      Maybe he and Sophie deserved a second chance because, as sure as hell, the years hadn’t dimmed the memory. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder because Luka was in the agony of recall again.

      And still angry again at her words towards him.

      He had never compared her to her father.

      Paulo was no innocent—he knew full well what two visits from him meant.

      Never would he have thrown that at Sophie.

      She wasn’t like her father, though, Luka thought. She was as volatile and explosive as Rosa.

      ‘I’m going to look her up again,’ he said to Angela. ‘I will go and see Paulo and make my peace with him.’

      ‘And ask where his daughter is?’ Angela smiled.

      ‘I have an earring that needs to be returned!’ He smiled; he hadn’t expected to smile today but he did. It hurt to be back here but it had cemented some things in his mind.

      He and Sophie deserved another chance.

      ‘She might be married,’ Angela said. ‘She might—’

      ‘Then it’s better to know,’ he said.

      It was the not knowing that killed him.

      It hurt too much to be here, Luka thought. He wanted the future, he wanted to explore if there was still a chance for him and Sophie, so he drained his coffee and stood.

      ‘I’m going to head back.’

      ‘Do you want to go through his things first?’

      ‘Just take what you need,’ Luka said. ‘Get rid of the rest.’

      ‘His jewellery?’ Angela said. ‘Don’t you want that at least?’

      ‘No.’ Luka shook his head. He was about to tell Angela to sell it and keep what she made but then he hesitated—no doubt his father’s jewellery hadn’t all come by honest means and he did not want Angela in trouble for handling stolen goods.

      ‘I will drop it in to Giovanni on the way to the airport,’ Luka said, referring to the local jeweller ‘He can melt it down or whatever.’

      Angela led him up the stairs and into Malvolio’s bedroom.

      There was nothing he wanted from here.

      He opened up a box and stared at his father’s belongings with distaste and then Luka’s heart stopped still in his chest and then started beating again, only faster than it had been before.

      ‘Can I have a moment?’ he said, and somehow managed a vaguely normal voice. He didn’t even see Angela leave but she must have because a moment later he looked up from the jewellery box and she was gone, the door had been closed and he was alone.

      Luka watched his hand shake a fraction as it went into the heavy wooden box and pulled out a simple gold cross and chain.

      Yes, he remembered Rosa.

      Luka had heard in court how things worked and knew that her necklace must have been taken as a souvenir after her death.

      Did Paulo know? Luka wondered.

      He looked at the door.

      Angela too?

      He felt sick as he started counting dates in his head. Yes, he remembered Rosa shouting down the hallway, telling Malvolio that it would be over her dead body before she gave up her home.

      The next memory?

      Her funeral. Paulo, holding a smiling Sophie, who, at two years old, had had no real idea how sombre the day had been.

      He remembered