Chapter 10
10
We found Leo and Raleigh in their suite. Leo was tucked away in a corner on his mobile having a rapid-fire discussion with someone in Italian, and Raleigh was standing by the window looking elegant but hopeless.
Her face brightened as we came into the room.
‘Leo is on the phone trying to ring round the agencies to find a temporary nanny; so far he hasn’t had any success. And now it’s getting late and they are all closing for the day. We thought we might find a museum to visit, but of course it’s too late for that now, so perhaps we could organise a little evening picnic in the garden, but Eric doesn’t know what he wants.’
She threw a look at the door of the adjoining bedroom, and we heard the sound of a television volume being turned up and then down again, followed by a muffled thud.
‘What’s the problem?’ I asked, feeling a bit irritated that she wasn’t doing anything sensible.
‘Oh, you know, Eric is such a bright boy. He is easily bored and distracted,’ Raleigh said.
‘I think all five-year-olds are the same,’ I said. ‘What about taking him for a walk around the garden? Looking for bugs or birds. It’s a beautiful afternoon out there. And more importantly, how is Andrea?’
‘She’s got a headache,’ Raleigh said. ‘I mean, we all get headaches, don’t we?’
‘She has a cluster migraine,’ Leo said firmly, ending his phone call. ‘It’s not the same thing at all. She’s very unwell.’
‘So where is Eric?’ Paulo asked, sneaking a look at his watch.
‘Watching television in our bedroom,’ Raleigh said, nodding towards the closed door, ‘but it’s all in Italian. And his iPad has run out of charge and the cable is in Andrea’s room somewhere.’
There was the sound of the door handle rattling, and a moment later Eric came out.
‘I’ve been out on the balcony, watching a man washing the windows,’ Eric said with an enormous grin of satisfaction.
Raleigh gasped with horror. ‘On your own?’
‘He was wearing rubber boots and a hat. And he had a bucket, and a spray bottle with blue water in it. I want to do that when I’m grown up. Or I’m going to be a cowboy.’
Raleigh looked a little shaken. ‘No, Eric, you’re going to Harvard Law School, remember?’
‘And then can I be a man with a spray bottle?’
‘Mmm, sounds a great job, buddy, everyone needs clean windows,’ Leo said enthusiastically, busy doing his five-minute father stint. ‘Would you like a drink of water?’
‘I’ve had pink juice. The man gave it to me. He had a spare can, and he opened it for me.’
Raleigh clutched at her throat and gave a strangled cry.
Paulo looked at his mobile, obviously trying not to laugh.
‘I’m terribly sorry, there is a problem in the kitchen, something to do with a delivery for tomorrow and a couple of waiters who are off sick. I must go and check.’
He gave me a grateful look and a wink and left.
‘We can go out into the garden for a walk around before bedtime,’ Leo said brightly.
Eric dropped his head back in the universal child language of acute disappointment and began to whine.
‘That sounds lame.’
I held out my hand and went into headmistress mode, speaking in a tone I had used to great effect down the years with recalcitrant children.
‘Perhaps you can go to the part of the garden where there aren’t any lights and then we can watch the stars come out as it gets dark. That’s what I used to do when I was your age. Let’s give it a try. Hurry up and put your sweater on and some warmer trousers; it might get chilly as the sun goes down. There aren’t a lot of streetlights here, so you will be able to see the stars far more than you can at home. And you never know, if you’re lucky we might rustle up some fries.’
‘Oh, okay,’ Eric said quite reasonably. ‘Are you coming too?’
‘Well, I suppose I can if you want me to,’ I said with a questioning look at Raleigh.
‘You won’t let him touch any bugs, will you?’ Raleigh said, nodding. ‘He had a worm in a matchbox once. I nearly fainted.’
* * *
We made our way to a delightful pergola at the far end of the garden, where there was a stone table and the sort of reclining chairs usually seen on film sets in Monte Carlo.
We got some drinks and Eric emptied his elegant metal cone of fries and then fidgeted around and dropped onto the floor where he scrabbled around for a while looking for a toy car he claimed to have lost. After a while he came back up and sat on the chair next to me with his legs sticking out.
‘This chair is prickly,’ he moaned as though he had been stabbed with a thousand knives.
‘But, honey, it can’t be prickly,’ Raleigh said.
Leo took off his pullover. ‘Sit on this, buddy,’ he said, ‘this is nice and soft.’
‘Leo, that sweater is Hugo Boss,’ Raleigh hissed.
‘Well, does anyone have a cheaper one for him to sit on?’ Leo hissed back.
I did but I wasn’t going to admit it.
Eric struggled to get comfortable and in the process, he kicked me. He gave me a knowing look like a cat who recognises immediately the person in the room who distrusts it least.
‘Honey, be careful, you’ll hurt yourself,’ Raleigh said, looking at me reproachfully as though it was my fault.
The sun set and the daylight began to fade.
‘Sit on my knee, Eric,’ Leo said, reaching out a welcoming arm. Eric gave a babyish grizzle.
‘No, want to sit there.’ He pointed towards me, and I stood up so I could move out of his way. Perhaps I could walk around the back of everyone. Or maybe I could wander off to the bar, pretend to get lost and have a cocktail?
Before I could do either, Eric clambered heavy-footed onto my lap and settled down after turning round three times. Exactly like a blooming cat. There was something about that boy…
‘Well, thank heavens,’ Raleigh hissed. ‘Keep still.’
Not sure if she was talking to Eric or me, I froze and gradually the light faded and the stars over the dark sea began to twinkle.
I could hear Eric’s yawning somewhere below my chin. He didn’t seem to weigh much but he was all angles and bony knees, and it took some time before he seemed to be comfortable.
‘What’s happening?’ he said rather loudly.
‘Let’s be like little mice. Really quiet.’
Eric giggled and gave a squeak. He kicked out his feet, catching me a hefty whack on my leg.
I bit back a yelp.
‘And really still,’ I hissed.
‘Or what will happen?’
‘You won’t see the stars, and neither will I,’ I said.
‘Tell me about the stars,’ he said.
I dredged through my memory for information I had found for my own children when they were this age and prone to asking difficult questions.
Why doesn’t glue stick to the inside of the tube? If a mermaid has an accident, does she go to the doctor or a vet? That sort of thing.
‘Stars are giant balls of hot gas made up mostly of hydrogen and helium. Our Sun is a star.’
I heard Eric give a little gasp and miraculously he was still.
‘If you look carefully, you can see groups of stars called constellations. And they all have different names. One of them is called Leo, like your dad.’
I felt him relax against me and I could just make out his profile as he looked up at the sky.
I managed to point out the Plough and the North Star, and then the W of Cassiopeia, and then Orion’s Belt.
I was rather enjoying myself, despite the fact that my left leg was itching, and I couldn’t reach it as Eric was in the way. Leo went off to answer a phone call at one point, and Raleigh wandered off too, murmuring something about finding another glass of wine, leaving me and Eric alone in the gathering darkness.
‘Will the stars ever fall down and hit us?’ Eric wanted to know. ‘Like they did with the dinosaurs?’
‘Very unlikely,’ I said.
‘You’re sure?’ He yawned again.
‘Positive.’
‘Did you ever see any dinosaurs?’
‘No, I never saw one,’ I assured him, wondering how old he thought I was.
A few minutes later, I looked down to see Eric had fallen asleep, curled up on my lap with his arm around my waist. I could just see the dark sweep of his eyelashes against his cheek and his chest rising and falling.
How many years was it since my own children were this small and came to me for comfort and advice? It seemed a long time and yet no time at all. Violet and Maud were this size. I’d enjoyed cuddles with them when they were babies, but more recently I hardly saw them. They lived hours away from me and like all modern parents, Jess and Kat had plunged into the world of children’s activities. They were busy and happy and well cared for, but I was missing out. I needed to do something about that while they still fitted onto my lap.
What should I do? I looked around and saw to no great surprise that Leo still hadn’t returned and nor had Raleigh. It was just the two of us sitting out there in the dark. For heaven’s sake! What sort of parents were they? The minute they got the opportunity to connect with their child, they blooming scarpered. No wonder Eric was so confused.
I looked down at him and felt rather sorry for him. Actually, he really was a beautiful child with glossy dark hair and pale, almost translucent, skin. It had been many years since I’d had a child of my own asleep in my lap, but the feeling was the same. Comfort and a protective urge that would probably never fade, no matter how old my own children were.
So much ahead for this spoiled, amazingly privileged boy. And yet there were still reasons to feel sorry for him. Only five and his life was already mapped out. An incredibly expensive school with other spoiled kids who thought nothing of yachts in the Caribbean and ski lodges in Aspen. Clothes direct from designers, toys by the truckload, interior designers brought in to change his nursery into a proper boy’s room. Perhaps he would have a hand-built bed in the shape of a rocket or an SUV. An artist would be drafted in at huge expense to paint a mural of planets or a jungle. Then onto Harvard Law School, development of utter self-belief and superiority and eventually marriage to a brittle little wife like his mother.
Perhaps at some point, Eric would stop whining and annoying everyone all the time and learn to be tolerable occasionally? Maybe? Well, he couldn’t be five forever, could he?
Paulo returned and I felt his hand on my shoulder.
‘Is he asleep?’
‘Seems like it,’ I said.
‘You’re very good with him. You must have been a great mother. Ellen never really enjoyed it. She was quite honest about it. One child was enough for her, although I would have liked more.’
I sat as still as I could, taking in this information. Something I hadn’t known. But then when I had seen her with Leo, she had been curiously disinterested. Perhaps she had been the sort of mother to speak about her child and his achievements rather than be a part of them.
Eric gave a huge sigh. It was like having an unexploded bomb on my lap. I had the awful feeling Eric wasn’t the sort to wake up chirpy.
I was right.
A few seconds later he began to wriggle, and he opened his eyes. He locked his gaze with mine for a moment as though he didn’t recognise me and then he started grizzling.
I stroked his hair back from his forehead, feeling very sentimental.
‘It’s okay, Eric. You just had a little nap, that’s all. Do you remember the stars coming out?’
He let loose with a wordless babble of protest and then slithered off my lap onto the floor and began to howl. After a moment I realised things were worse than I had thought, and he had peed on me. The sweet, lovely, sleeping child was gone and Eric was back.
* * *
I went back to my room to change my damp clothes and as I opened the doors onto the terrace outside, Susie appeared.
‘I’ve got something for you. Why are you wet? Did you spill something?’
‘Don’t ask,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to get changed. So, what have you been doing?’
Susie looked dreamily into the distance for a moment.
‘I had a lovely lunch at a gorgeous little place overlooking the sea, then I came back and had a little snooze. These beds really are comfy, aren’t they? And then the Contessa rang me and invited me back to her room.’
I went into my bathroom, took off my clothes and put on my dressing gown.
‘I’d better have a shower,’ I said.
‘Well, before you do, come and see what I’ve got.’
Susie led me to her room and pointed with some excitement at some cotton clothing bags hanging from the curtain rail.
‘Ceci said we could borrow these. She got them in Paris about a million years ago. Heaven knows what they’re worth. Just take a look.’
She unzipped the bags to reveal four cocktail dresses, each more dazzling than the last.
‘She did say she had gone through a phase when she was bigger than she is now, which I think was her way of being polite about the fact that we are both fatter than she is. I’m going to wear the red one, so you can choose one of the other three.’
I reached out to touch the silky fabrics, one heavily embroidered with leaves and flowers, the other two beaded and shimmering with each movement.
‘I can’t wear something like that,’ I said. ‘I’d be bound to spill something down myself. And considering Eric just peed on me, I’m not going to let him anywhere near them.’
‘He didn’t?’
‘He fell asleep on my lap. I feel quite sorry for him actually. His parents are lovely, but they obviously don’t have a clue how to handle him, and now Andrea is out of commission for a couple of days, you would think their world had come to an end. I’ve offered to keep an eye on him.’
‘And this is the thanks you get?’
‘Look, I’m going to have a shower, and then I will come and have a closer look. So, you had a good time?’
Susie gave a happy sigh. ‘I really did. Raimondo is such a gentleman. We had a meal down by some little harbour. Everything tasted so wonderful, and then we just sat and chatted, and he drove the long way home, so I got a chance to see the scenery. And then we stopped for coffee at some out of the way place with Roman ruins in the garden. This glamorous life is marvellous, isn’t it? I’ve had more compliments from him in the last twenty-four hours than I had in four years from Simon.’
‘I often think that when I am getting into bed at seven thirty with a cup of tea and a Penguin to watch Strictly Come Dancing. Somewhere, people are still getting ready and going out to dinner. Did we have that energy back in the day?’
Susie nodded. ‘We must have done. And how are you and Paulo getting on? I keep forgetting to ask.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said, trying to sound unconcerned, ‘nothing at all to worry about. We are just old friends now, nothing more.’
‘Really, Jo? Really? That’s not the impression I got,’ Susie said.
‘Why, what impression did you get?’ I fired back. ‘What did he say?’
It was the same as it had always been, and probably still was. Girls asking their friends what a boy thought of them. Did he say anything?
‘He hasn’t said anything to me. It’s just the way he looks at you. As though he is remembering things as they used to be.’
‘That’s nonsense. There was nothing to remember. He was very happy with Ellen; I know they were. She was much better for him than I could ever have been.’
‘Yes, probably, but then – well, life goes on, doesn’t it? Raimondo told me she was quite strict about things, an absolute powerhouse, and that’s why the hotel was so successful. People change. Circumstances alter. We still have needs and hopes, don’t we? Just the same as when we were young. We can learn new things all the time, now we have YouTube. There’s nothing wrong with that.’