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‘I’m in Year Four at St Bart’s Primary school,’ Gina piped up. ‘I’m top of my class in maths and english,’ she said proudly. ‘Last week I got a star award!’ She looked at Charlotte. ‘Didn’t I, Mum?’
Charlotte watched as Riccardo’s brain shifted into gear, heading towards the inexorable conclusion. He went very, very still and his eyes sharpened on Gina’s face, taking in the dark, tumbling curls, the big brown eyes, the slightly olive skin—putting two and two together.
Having broken the ice, Gina, self-assured like her father, began to chat about her star award, offering to fetch it for a viewing, while Riccardo looked at her in frozen silence.
‘Eight years old,’ he said finally, in an oddly unsteady voice. ‘And when exactly is your birthday, Gina?’
‘Gina, you need to go and clean that room of yours now…And as a special treat…’ Charlotte snatched the bag of sweets from the table and thrust it into her daughter’s astounded hand with a strained smile. ‘But only this once! Because I need to have a private little chat with Riccardo. So, after you clean your room, you can…you can…’ She could feel Riccardo’s eyes boring into her, and she didn’t need to read the expression in them because her imagination was well equipped to provide it for her. ‘You can play on your games console!’ Whilst not quite as bad as the sweets issue, Gina’s computer games were a limited treat. She grinned happily and didn’t wait for her mother to change her mind which, she had discovered, adults had a way of doing. She dashed up the stairs, and Charlotte closed the door gently behind her. She had to lean against the closed door to support herself.
‘Oh, dear God, tell me that you weren’t…Dios! Tell me that you weren’t pregnant…’ Riccardo said in a flat, stunned voice. For the first time in his life he felt as though life had turned around and kicked him in the stomach, and then, having done so, had returned to repeat the exercise. He sat down heavily on the sofa and rested his elbows on his knees. The thoughts in his head were moving so quickly that he felt physically sick. He dropped his head in his hands and stared down at the floor.
‘Look,’ Charlotte said awkwardly. ‘I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.’ She took a couple of tentative steps towards the chair, and Riccardo turned his head to look at her with savage contempt.
‘What you’re saying is that you didn’t mean for me to find out at all!’ That small dark-haired child whom he had viewed with just mild curiosity was his own flesh and blood! Riccardo felt a surge of rage wash through him with the force of a tidal wave, and he had to breathe deeply or else succumb to a violence he had never felt before. Which wouldn’t do. Already his mind was working quickly, trying to figure out how best to handle the unbelievable.
Charlotte didn’t say anything. He was beginning to scare her, not because she felt he might become physically threatening, but because there was a coldness in his eyes that was even more menacing. ‘You don’t understand!’ she said defensively.
‘Then why don’t you enlighten me?’
Charlotte could see that the last thing he wanted was enlightenment. He was not going to be prepared to listen to what she had to say, but there was no way that she was going to remain silent.
Riccardo watched as she walked tentatively towards the chair. She looked as though one false move on his part and she would run a mile, and she would be right, he thought, because right now his precious self-control was wearing very thin at the edges. His head was cluttered with images of the child who had told him about her star award, to whom he had shown only passing, polite interest.
