More miscarriages followed Vittore’s birth; but after a twelve-year gap at last the news was good. Bella was pregnant again, and this time it would be the girl she longed for.
‘Look how the baby carries all the way round, not just a little bump at the front,’ she said gleefully to anyone who would listen, when she was huge and in the seventh month of her pregnancy. ‘It’s a girl. A little bambina, at last.’
When she went into labour, there was a ferociously long struggle to bring her daughter into the world. Exhausted, wrung out with the agony and blood loss, Bella gave one final desperate push and then looked down as the child spiralled out of her body. Her triumph turned to ashes in her mouth as she saw squirming there not the girl she had wanted so much but a puny little boy. Her heartbreak at being denied a daughter yet again was compounded by the doctors warning her and Astorre that this should be her last child.
‘But I want a little girl to complete my family,’ she cried when they broke the news.
‘It’s not safe,’ said the doctor, and she was forced to accept that.
But it grieved her, the lack of a daughter. She had Tito. And she had Vittore, her favourite, her own little love. Now she had baby Fabio too, but he was a disappointment, always pushed away. She craved a girl. Longed for one. Without a daughter, her family would never be complete.
22
Someone was knocking at the front door. No, they were hammering on it, in perfect counterpoint to the steady throbbing of Kit’s head.
‘You’d better open this door,’ said a voice. ‘Or else I’m going to get Rob to kick it off its hinges.’
Kit closed his eyes again. Now where was he…? He looked around him with sore eyes. He was in his own living room. He was dressed. He had… oh yeah. He’d got out of the shower, got himself all ready to roll, and then he’d come downstairs, sat down on his huge brown leather sofa – and fallen asleep. And there was the bottle, right there beside him, his ever-useful and strictly non-judgemental companion.
He reached for it.
Empty.
Fuck.
‘Kit! Open this bloody door! I know you’re in there!’
Kit groaned and lurched to his feet. Staggered. Thought that he was going to fall straight back down, arse over tit. But no: slowly, the room stopped revolving. He tottered out to the hall, over to the door, and opened it.
Daisy was standing there, Rob at her shoulder. She looked flushed, angry, anxious.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Kit, turning away from the door and going back into the living room. He went to the sofa and flopped down upon it.
Daisy came and stood in front of him. Her eyes took in the state of him, the empty whisky bottle by his side.
‘Just look at you,’ she said in disgust.
Kit got his eyes open again. Stared up at her. ‘Shouldn’t you be stacking a shelf somewhere?’
‘Oh, shut up. Ruby was worried about you, she asked me to come, see you were OK.’
‘And you brought Rob, too. All right, mate?’ Kit raised an unsteady hand.
Rob said nothing.
‘As you can see, I’m perfectly bloody fine,’ said Kit. ‘So the pair of you can fuck off.’
‘We’re not going anywhere. Make some coffee, Rob,’ said Daisy, sitting down on the sofa and tossing the empty bottle aside.
‘Yeah, hurry up and do the business, Robbo old son,’ Kit shouted after Rob as he went out to the kitchen. ‘Do as the boss lady says.’
Daisy’s flush deepened. ‘Don’t be horrible to Rob,’ she snapped. ‘He’d take a bullet for you – don’t you dare make fun of him.’
‘Ah.’ Kit laid his aching head on the sofa and closed his eyes with a smile. ‘You got a crush on him, aintcha? I can tell, Daise.’
Daisy surged to her feet. ‘Will you shut up?’ she yelled. ‘Don’t you realize the trouble you’re in?’
Kit opened his bleary eyes and squinted up at his twin sister – not that they looked alike, apart from the blue eyes. Hers were clear and bright; his, from a brief glance in the bathroom mirror earlier today, looked like two orange-red piss-holes in the snow.
Oh, he knew he was in trouble. He knew that Vittore Danieri was going to be looking to carve a good-sized chunk of meat out of his arse for turning up at the funeral. But somehow he couldn’t get himself to care.
Rob was out in the kitchen, filling the kettle and putting it on to boil, then opening cupboards, rattling cups. All Kit wanted was to close his eyes again, forget it all.
I seek oblivion, he thought with sudden clarity. I seek death.
But there was no eternal peace here, only Daisy pacing back and forth. After a bit Rob came in with a mug of black coffee in his bear-like paw and placed it on the coffee table, not looking his boss in the eye.
Daisy was still stalking about the room, shooting filthy looks at Kit. ‘Ruby told me what you did. Turning up at the funeral. How the hell could you do something so stupid?’
‘Stupidity comes naturally to me. Didn’t you know?’
‘Oh, do shut up.’
‘Oh, do shut up,’ said Kit, mimicking her.
Daisy blushed bright red. Her eyes turned frosty. He’d hit a nerve. ‘Don’t mock me,’ she ordered, moving in on him. For a moment she looked mad enough to slap the crap out of him.
‘Have some coffee,’ advised Rob, standing over his boss with arms folded.
‘Fuck your coffee,’ said Kit. ‘And fuck you too.’
Rob shook his head. He looked more sad than angry.
‘Mate, you got to stop this,’ he said, ‘or one day Vittore’s going to be on you and you’ll be too pissed to even realize you’re dead.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘You’re such an idiot,’ said Daisy. ‘Ruby told me what Vittore did when you-’
‘And did she tell you that none of the Danieri brothers were responsible for Michael’s death?’ asked Kit. He reached for the coffee, took a sip. Sour. Horrible. He put it back down.
‘She did,’ said Daisy. ‘Yes.’
‘And I’m supposed to believe that?’
‘What reason do you have to disbelieve it?’ asked Daisy, starting her pacing again. ‘Apparently the Danieri boys hold their mother in very high esteem. Something you might find hard to understand, I imagine.’
Kit stiffened. ‘Hey, don’t start on me. Start on her over in Marlow, the great Ruby Darke. I’m not the one who abandoned their kid.’
‘I’m not getting into all that again,’ sighed Daisy. They’d argued about this on more than one occasion, her saying that Ruby had no choice, her family had turned on her when they found out she was pregnant out of wedlock and there was no way she could raise two babies all by herself, not in those days. To which Kit always said bullshit.
‘Good,’ said Kit. ‘Because I don’t fucking well want to hear it, not from you, not from anyone. Got that?’
Daisy and Rob looked at each other.
‘Mate…’ started Rob, turning despairing eyes on Kit.
‘Kit,’ said Daisy. ‘You’ve insulted Vittore’s family by doing what you did.’
Kit shrugged and squinted up at her. His sister, his twin. OK, she might have got the glamorous end of it growing up – the pony clubs, the coming-out balls, all that hoity-toity shit, but she was no fool; you didn’t have to draw her any pictures. He had another slug of the coffee. It was still the pits.
Daisy sat down beside Kit. ‘I loved Michael,’ she said quietly.